Loose Ends
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, AU. Seasons 2 and 3. When a group rips apart at the end of the world, a lot of loose ends are left. Can they all be tied back together or is the divide too great? Michandrea/Merle Dixon as well.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This story requires a little explanation. It's a story that I've plotted and wanted to write for about a year now. It's a different take on Seasons 2 and 3 from the show. It's going to be following several "groups" or couples as they continue on from where they are to where they're going. (I don't want to give everything away.) It's a Caryl story because (spoiler alert) Carol and Daryl will end up being one of those couples. There will be other small groups, too. I tell you this so that you won't grow frustrated and so that you can make a decision about if you want to read the story. Caryl will not be the subject of every single chapter, but they will be the subject of their chapters.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Scouting was either a grand success or a complete waste of time. There never seemed to be anything in between these days. It was either a case of hitting a jackpot and being able to load down the truck—and sometimes even mark a location to return to when the truck was emptied—or it was a case of coming up dry because everyone that had come through the area had picked it entirely clean.

This run had come a lot closer to being a total waste of Merle's time than it had to being a success. He could've told the Governor that it would be too—these were all small farms in a rural area and wouldn't offer much more than the few home goods he had stored away in the truck—but the Governor didn't ask his advice on that. Advice was Milton's job. Merle knew, though, that even if Milton knew his way around the quirky little lab that he'd built, he didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when it came to real life shit.

Merle was the one that the Governor should've asked about this shit. Instead, he simply sent Merle out on runs.

The only time that the Governor asked Merle's advice was when it came down to who might be a problem for them. That was really what he saw Merle as good for—someone who could read people pretty damn well.

Merle could read people pretty damn well, but that didn't mean he hadn't made some sorry calls in his life. Of course, those sorry calls were probably why he'd learned to read people half as well as he could.

Still, Merle could've told the Governor that the farmhouses peppering the countryside weren't going to do much for increasing the items they had in storage. Each house offered up only the basics that someone would have on hand to last until the next time they made it to the store. A box of food out the cabinet that hadn't spoiled, a small box of toiletries, a trashbag or two of decent clothes, and a couple rolls of toilet paper was about all that Merle pulled out of any of the houses that fit the bill of what he'd come to gather.

The other reason for his week spent moving house to house was to look for people, but he hadn't seen a single one of those either. There were Walkers out the ass, but there wasn't anybody left alive out there. They'd moved on. More than likely the cars piled up on the highway belonged to the people who had lived in the humble houses that Merle had been picking clean. Those that hadn't made it out in time were still trapped in their homes—a few with bullet wounds they'd given themselves when they were still too dumb to know that brain destruction was the only way out—or they were wandering around the woods in the strange little packs that they seemed fond of forming while they searched for food.

Some places Merle got sent to weren't void of people, though, and that was how they built the population of Woodbury. It was also how they got information about other people that might be around. It was a new group of people—six in total—that had brought the information about the farmhouses and had suggested that there might be a population of survivors holding out there. The farms, after all, were some of the most self-sufficient locations around.

When Merle had searched every one of the farmhouses on his map except for one, he took the time to record the inventory that he had in the journal where he scratched such information, and then he drove on to the last house with the intention of spending the night there. When morning came, having cleared that house of anything it might offer up, Merle would head back to Woodbury. After a quick conversation with the Governor, he'd get his pick of anything he wanted off the truck as payment for his service and, more than likely, he would get his new orders.

The last farmhouse was smaller than most and tucked a great distance off any main road. Without the markings on the map done by their new arrivals, Merle never would've found it. It was, honestly, the kind of place that Merle would've liked to have had for himself before the world went belly up if he ever could have afforded such a place. He and his brother, he figured, could've lived very comfortably in a little house like that. It was a good distance away from neighbors, probably had a well all its own, and was in a prime location for hunting.

The farmhouse could've been a veritable Dixon paradise, but now it was just an abandoned little farmhouse and Merle was on his own.

Merle didn't like to think of himself as a man who held grudges. He didn't have the time or energy to keep track of every asshole who'd ever done him wrong in his whole life. If something bothered him badly enough, he usually broke the bastard's jaw or nose and called it even. But these days, he was carrying around a grudge and he knew it.

Officer Friendly had come riding his ass into town like he was some kind of superhero that was going to save them all from something that could very well be a Biblical plague for all that Merle knew. He had no sooner arrived than he thought he ought to be calling the shots. He ought to tell them all what to do and how to do it. He didn't even stop to ask if what the hell they'd already been doing was working for them well enough. Maybe they didn't all sing kumbaya around the campfire every night while they toasted marshmallows, but not even their tiffs had come to anything that had cost anyone life or limb.

Officer Friendly had no sooner gotten there than he very nearly cost Merle his life and he absolutely cost him a limb.

Like he was no damn better than a dog, Officer Friendly had left Merle handcuffed to a roof in the Georgia sun. He'd left him there without food and water and he'd left nothing between him and the Dead but a chain held by a deadlock—a chain that would eventually give way.

Directly or indirectly, Officer Friendly had left Merle to die and he'd cost him his hand to save himself from such a miserable death. Officer Friendly had also cost Merle his brother—the one damn thing he had left in the world and the only person he'd ever really had even before the Dead started walking.

Merle had looked everywhere for Daryl, but his little brother had disappeared, it seemed, from the face of the Earth. For all Merle knew, Officer Friendly had done away with him just because he didn't fit whatever image he had of the ideal citizen that was allowed to remain in his group. Daryl had probably been just another loose end that Officer Friendly had taken care of while he was preening the group to be just what the hell he wanted it to be.

Merle didn't like to think of himself as a man who held grudges, but he couldn't say he had a soft spot for Officer Friendly. And since he'd never gotten to work out his feelings by busting the man's jaw the way he might have wanted, he couldn't exactly swear that it they'd be sharing beans and cornbread together if they ever got a chance to meet again.

The little farmhouse could've been a good spot for the Dixon brothers, but now Merle was alone and Woodbury was just as good for him, on his own, as any place else.

Merle pulled a plastic tub off the back of the truck and carried it into the house. It had taken some work to learn how to carry things like that, especially once they were loaded down and heavy, with only one hand, but Merle had figured it out. As a result, he felt like he was three times as strong as he once had been. He only had one hand, but that didn't mean that there were too many men who dared to cross him.

He'd figured most things out, honestly, and he didn't miss his hand half as much as he'd thought he would in the beginning. That was what the hell Officer Friendly didn't know about Dixons—it was hard as hell to kill them, and even harder to keep them down if they were left with breath in their bodies.

Merle took the tub into the house and immediately started emptying contents from the cabinets into the tub. There wasn't much there. It had been pretty well picked over. Some beans and some canned vegetables were in there. There was more than enough tomato sauce for a few good pots of spaghetti, but there weren't any noodles. There was a bag of flour and half a bag of sugar. All in all, there wouldn't be much to add to his list from this house.

While he was working, Merle heard the floorboards upstairs creaking. He heard the shifting of the old flooring under the weight of feet. He ignored the sound and continued filling the plastic tub until he was sure that he'd gathered up anything and everything that the Governor might think was good for their storage.

It was a Walker. Merle was sure of it. The damned things got trapped in the houses a lot. It was upstairs, so chances were it had been there since the turn. When he got up there, Merle figured he would see some sorry son of a bitch with half his head blown off or something equally as depressing. Whoever it was, though, and however they'd died, they'd wait patiently for Merle to come and put them down or else they'd fall down the stairs trying to figure out how to get to something to eat.

Either way, Merle would take care of them in his time.

Merle didn't bother with the Walker until he came back in from getting his pack out of the truck. He wanted to sleep upstairs, in some nice bed, and he wanted to go through the bathroom cabinets up there. He wasn't going to be able to do that in peace until the dumbass Walker was put down and disposed of.

Sighing, Merle mounted the steps toward the upper level. The creature had grown quiet, which was unusual for them. Once they smelled something they wanted, they usually didn't back down. Merle figured it had probably wandered into something it couldn't get out of and was stuck somewhere—trapped in several levels of hell and infinite frustration.

When he got up there, though, Merle couldn't find the Walker. He knocked the bayonet cuff that he'd made to cover his stump against the wall. In response he heard nothing. Slowly, Merle walked room to room and pushed open doors on the upper levels. No Walkers popped out. Nothing moved.

Merle swallowed.

It wasn't a Walker, and now things just got trickier than they had been before.

"Come out," Merle said. "I know you up here. Best damn thing you can do is come on out now." There was no response. "I got a place. Safe. Food and people there. You come on out, don't cause no trouble, I'll take you back there." Merle laughed to himself. "You come out and jump at my ass? I ain't takin' you back, though. I'ma kill you right the hell where you are when I find you. Consider your ass warned."

The only response that Merle heard to his warning was a very light bumping around, but the sound was enough to let him know where the person he was now searching for was taking refuge. Merle walked toward the bedroom, dragging his bayonet prosthetic down the wall to warn the person that he was coming. He didn't care if they prepared for his arrival or not. If they tried to kill him, he wouldn't have to wonder what kind of person they were. He'd know exactly what he was dealing with and he was confident that he was fast enough to deal with them before they ever got a chance to try to kill him.

When he pushed open the bedroom door, he found the room empty. He closed the door back and turned the lock on the knob so that, if the person tried to run for it, they'd at least be slowed down. Merle went to the closet and slung open the door, but he found it empty.

He might've believed the room was empty and that his ears had tricked him, but he heard something brush the carpet and he turned in time to see the cloth that was hanging around the bed stir.

Merle swallowed back his laughter. Whoever this asshole was, they were hiding under the bed. Merle, suddenly, wasn't afraid of them at all.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Merle said, laughing to himself. He pulled his gun and held it in his hand, ready to fire if needed. He walked over to the bed and threw up the fabric so that it didn't hang to the floor. They didn't come out. They didn't reach for his feet.

Merle leaned down and got to his knees, keeping his gun in his hand if he should need to fire at them.

Putting his face to the floor and taking a chance, Merle glanced under the bed to see what he might find there, but he didn't expect what he saw.

Staring back at him was a little girl, as flat as she could be against the floor, with her mouth open and her eyes wide with fear.

But she wasn't just any little girl. The last time Merle had seen her, his brother had been offering the girl some hard candy that Merle had given him from a bag he snatched on a run.

Merle's stomach tightened, he almost didn't believe his eyes.

"Where the hell is everybody else?" Merle asked, surprised at the way his own voice sounded as it came out of his mouth.

The girl still looked at him, owl-eyed, the same way her mother looked at him whenever she was watching him to see what he might do or say. She recognized him, though. That was clear, because her features softened just a little when he spoke.

"I'm don't know," Sophia said quietly.

"What'cha mean you don't know?" Merle asked, not even caring that his face was pressed against the carpet and he was having a conversation with a kid stuck up under a bed.

"I'm alone," Sophia said.

Merle swallowed.

"Makes two of us," Merle responded. "Come the hell out from under there. I ain't gonna hurt'cha."


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we are, another chapter for this story.**

 **We're finding Carol and Daryl in a slightly different place than they normally are at this point in the "season".**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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The most frustrating thing about the whole damn situation was that Daryl felt like there was no support from the man who was supposed to be their leader and the man who was supposed to be his ever-faithful sidekick. Rick had been leading them, yes, but Daryl wasn't really sure _where_ the man was leading them.

He surely wasn't leading the search for the lost little girl. Daryl had been doing that all on his own.

And there were times, even if he didn't admit it out loud to keep peace within the group, that he could've choked Rick for simply abandoning the girl in the woods in the first place. If it had been his son, Daryl was sure that Rick wouldn't have left him out there to find his way back. Even though he swore he'd had no other choice, Rick would've found a way if it had been Carl. If it had been his son, he wouldn't have practically abandoned the search either—but, of course, Sophia wasn't Carl. And Carl, perhaps, was one of the main reasons that Rick practically couldn't be bothered to put much thought or effort into searching for Sophia.

Daryl was handling any serious searching that happened. He had to. It wasn't a case of doing something himself if he wanted it done right, it was a case of doing something if he wanted it done at all.

And he did want it done. He needed it done.

Daryl needed to find Sophia.

He needed to find Sophia for Sophia's sake. Daryl knew what it was to be a child that felt forgotten in a world that seemed far too big and far too cruel. And the world, arguably, was even worse now than it had been before. He knew what it was to feel alone and lost, both literally and figuratively. He knew, too well, the kind of life that Sophia had led up to that point and he knew what that did to a child.

Daryl needed to find Sophia for Sophia's sake.

But he also needed to find her for his own sake.

They'd already lost Merle. They'd lost Amy. They'd lost Jim and everyone else that they'd known back at the rock quarry. They'd lost Jacqui at the CDC. Their group was dwindling and the constant state of loss, even if he wasn't particularly close to everyone that was gone from them, was starting to suffocate Daryl. He'd always had very little in his life, and he'd always had a fear of losing what he did have. He'd lost it all once when he was a boy and his home had burned and taken his mother with it. Loss was something that created a gnawing pit in Daryl's stomach that he couldn't fill. It seemed to stay there, open, like a void.

Daryl needed to find Sophia because he needed to prove to himself that loss wasn't permanent and it wasn't guaranteed to keep happening. He needed to find Sophia because he needed the hope that such a thing would give him.

Daryl needed to find Sophia for Carol.

She was a mother without her child. She was a widow who had lost a husband who hadn't really been worth much, but he'd still been a symbol of all that she'd depended on before the end of the world. She was a woman that was every bit as alone as Daryl was in the world and he wanted to find her daughter for her.

More than that, she meant something to Daryl—something that he'd never expected she might. It was something he couldn't quite explain.

He could easily admit that the time they'd spent together in the CDC was the result of his drunken loss of inhibitions. He'd celebrated with a little too much whiskey, she'd tucked away quite a few glasses of wine herself, and they'd both found themselves without the will to say "no" to something that they both wanted.

He wished that he could say it had been some beautiful, soft, coming together that happened between them, but it hadn't. It had been clumsy and probably not as good for her as she would've liked. It hadn't lasted nearly as long, either, as Daryl might have liked.

And when she'd gone stumbling back to her room where her daughter was sleeping, Daryl had felt an emptiness that he couldn't quite explain. It was the same emptiness that he felt when he lost something, but Carol wasn't really gone. She'd only moved back to her room and, honestly, she'd never been his to lose in the first place.

He could say that night had been born of drunkenness, but he couldn't say it was a mistake and he couldn't say that he regretted it.

Even the next morning, when he'd quietly apologized to her and let her know that what had happened wasn't really how he was—it wasn't how he acted—Daryl had felt warm and a little less _empty_ just being near her. Even though it embarrassed him, he'd clung to the rush that came when he'd heard her say she hoped it wasn't entirely unlike him. After all, she had liked it too.

She wanted it to happen again. He wanted it to happen again. And maybe it would, but it wasn't fair to ask anything from her when she was grieving her missing daughter and there seemed to be so little concern from everyone else in their group about the girl's whereabouts.

Daryl needed to see Carol happy again, like she'd been that night, and he needed to see her daughter back in her arms. If it was going to happen, though, it looked like he was going to have to be the one to make it happen. Their leader certainly wasn't helping.

"I've searched this whole area," Daryl said, dragging his finger across the map that was laid out on the table in the tight space of the RV. Carol leaned over the map and looked at the trail he'd just drawn. "Back here? This is where we were on the highway. Now, Glenn went back up there this mornin'. Sophia ain't been there. Nothing's been touched. Nobody's been there but us when we were checkin' for her."

Carol sighed loudly and sunk back into the seat she occupied across the table from Daryl.

"What if she's not out there?" Carol asked.

"She's out there," Daryl said.

"She should've come back by now, Daryl," Carol said. "She should've found her way back to the highway. Rick said he left her at the creek and it wasn't that far from the road."

"It ain't," Daryl said. "Not if you know where you goin'. But Soph's a kid an' things look bigger to them than they look to us. She was scared. Had to be. The CDC just blew up and she almost died there. Got chased by them creatures and Rick left her in the water. You panic an' you can get lost in your own house."

"It's been three days," Carol said. "She should've at least made it back to the highway by now."

"Not if she come out somewhere else," Daryl said. "See—this here is where I found her doll. There's where I found that lil' bed in the kitchen. Remember. If she started here an' she's been here and here—I got a good idea of where she's goin'. At least I got some idea of which direction she's headed in."

"Why wouldn't she just go back to the highway?" Carol asked, wringing her hands in frustration.

"She's lost it," Daryl said. "She don't know where the highway is no more. She's movin' from one place to another. She don't know where we are an' she don't know where she is. Chances are—she's just tryin' to stay alive and she ain't thinkin' about much else at this point."

"Then how are we going to find her?" Carol asked. "How is anyone going to find her?"

"I'ma find her," Daryl assured Carol. "She's movin' this way. If she went this way—made a turn? She'd come back out at the highway. Up from where we left her. She ain't gonna know where she is. She ain't gonna know which way it is to where we left the supplies. Got a fifty-fifty chance of goin' in the right direction. One way she ends up back at the car. Other way? She's just walkin' down the highway."

"And farther away," Carol said, her voice shaking.

"I don't think she's goin' that way," Daryl said. "Not back to the highway. She'd have to make a turn from where she's been goin'. She's been movin' steady in the same direction based on where I found the doll and the bed. Just like this. Maybe she's staggerin' a little in one direction or another, but she's goin' in a straight line she's made for herself. If I can figure out how fast she's travellin', I can cut her off before she gets too far." Daryl shrugged his shoulders. "I shoot too high, she ain't made it there yet and I don't know it. I shoot too low, she's already been there an' I missed her—lost some more time."

It was dark outside. It was dark in the RV. The only reason they could see anything was because the oil lamp on the table kept the small space pretty well lit. Soon they'd have to go to bed. Right now, outside, Dale was sitting around the fire with some of the others, but he'd want to turn in before long and the RV was really his. When he was ready to call it a night, Carol would go to the little bedroom that he insisted she use while he slept on the fold out couch, and Daryl would return to his tent at the far end of the small little camp that they'd made. It wouldn't be long before Daryl would lean up, across the table, and accept the soft kiss that Carol would give him—a comfort for them both before they said goodnight.

The kiss would get Daryl through the night and, in the morning, Daryl would start looking for Sophia again.

In the days since she'd been lost, Daryl had found her doll. He'd found some cleaned out cabinets in a farmhouse that told him she was probably scavenging for food. He'd found a bed in another cabinet that made him think she'd hidden there to rest after enjoying the tuna that came out of some fairly freshly opened cans he'd found.

He'd also found an arrow through his side, a concussion, and some pretty traumatic hallucinations of his brother that had all resulted from a fall he took while searching along what he thought was Sophia's chosen path through the woods.

But Daryl had yet to actually lay his eyes or hands on the girl herself.

"You can't go out there alone," Carol said. "It's getting too dangerous."

"I'm the only one that can go out there," Daryl said. "Hell—Rick's got everyone runnin' around in different directions. I don't think he even thinks about where she might be. He just—sends people off in one direction or another. I know he don't listen to me."

"You can't get hurt again," Carol said. She shook her head at him. "You're not well yet."

"And Sophia ain't gonna wait around for me to get well," Daryl said. "She's movin' so that's what I gotta do."

"What if you get hurt again?" Carol asked. "What if she's not out there and you're just—what if you fall again? Get hurt? And you don't come back?" Carol shook her head at him. "I can't lose you too."

Daryl sucked in a breath and held it. Carol was having a hard time believing her daughter was still alive. Of course she was. Everything about this world made it almost impossible to believe that any of them would survive alone, so why should she figure that her kid would make it? On top of that, Rick and Shane weren't too quiet with their commentary about the whole damn thing and it seemed that the two of them—fearless leaders that they were—had already practically decided Sophia was dead.

Daryl reached across the table and caught Carol's hand. She let him hold it over the map for a second before she pulled it away and wiped at her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You should be," Daryl said. "She needs you to believe in her. She's out there and I'ma find her."

"And if you get hurt again?" Carol asked.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Ain't nothin' that can kill a Dixon," Daryl teased. It was something his brother had always told him. They were practically immortal. It wasn't true, of course, and Daryl had already lost his brother. Rick had left him behind, handcuffed to a roof, and all that was left of him when they got up there was his bloodied hand that he'd cut off with a hacksaw. Daryl didn't know that Merle was dead, but he wasn't certain that he was alive either. Maybe, like Carol, he was finding it hard to hold out hope in a world like this.

It was yet another reason that Daryl had to find Sophia.

"I don't want you to die," Carol said softly.

"I ain't," Daryl said. "And neither are you. I'ma go out there. I'ma follow this path. I'll find Sophia and bring her back. That's all there is to it. Maybe tomorrow even."

The corners of Carol's mouth played at forming a soft smile.

"Tomorrow?" She asked.

"Maybe," Daryl responded.

"You said that yesterday," Carol said.

"And one of these damn days, I'ma be right," Daryl said. He sucked in a breath and let it out. "Gettin' late. You need to sleep. Tomorrow's a big day. I can feel it. Besides—Dale's gonna be wantin' to sleep soon. Old man can't stay up but so late."

Carol nodded her head at him and Daryl leaned up, across the table. Carol met him and gifted him one of the soft kisses that he'd come to rely on.

"Goodnight, Daryl," Carol said quietly when they separated. Daryl eased his way out of the bench seat next to the table and cleared his throat as soon as he was on his feet.

"Night, Carol," he said, his cheeks burning warm the same way they always did when she looked at him the way she was looking at him then.

For a moment, and if Dale wouldn't have protested, Daryl wondered if Carol might have invited him to spend the night with her in the bedroom of the RV. She didn't invite him, though, and he didn't ask. There was time for that, and now wasn't the time.

"Night," Daryl repeated, quickly making his exit from the RV. He bypassed the fire and he bypassed everyone else. He headed straight for his tent to get to sleep as quickly as he could. He wanted to close his eyes before the feeling of the kiss had completely faded. He wanted the sweet dreams, he knew by now, such a sweet kiss could bring him.

Daryl was certain that Sophia was out there and he was sure that she was safe. He had a gut feeling about it. In the morning, he'd go looking for her again. With any luck, he'd finally bring her back to her mother.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Merle pushed the bowl of baked beans across the table in Sophia's direction and then opened the pack of saltine crackers. He pushed the package in Sophia's direction as soon as he'd torn it open so that most of the crackers were exposed.

"Go on," Merle urged when Sophia sat there staring at him instead of eating the food he put in front of her. She continued to stare at him a moment and Merle shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe it ain't no gourmet meal. Ain't what'cha Ma would make or some shit like that, but it's what the hell I got." He laughed a little to himself when she still looked hesitant to pick up the fork he'd given her. "You know how fuckin' hard it is to make even that when you ain't got but one hand? Don't gotta be no critic."

"Aren't you gonna eat?" Sophia asked.

Merle's stomach tightened and he cleared his throat. He'd read the little girl wrong. He'd assumed she was offended by what was on offer for a meal, but she was simply concerned that Merle was going hungry if she ate more than her share.

It wasn't too often that anyone was concerned about Merle's well-being.

"I eat plenty today," Merle said. "More on the truck if I'm starvin' for it. I get my pick of what I bring in. When's the last time you eat?" Sophia shrugged her shoulders. It was clearly all the response she was giving Merle. "Go on, then," Merle said. "Eat it up. Don't make sense lettin' good food go to waste these days." Sophia accepted his push to eat that time and she shoveled some of the beans into her mouth before she crammed nearly a whole cracker into her mouth to follow them. Merle winced at the sight of it. "Don't put so damn much in your mouth. I don't know how to do the—don't chokin' thing. It ain't goin' nowhere. Slow down. We ain't leavin' 'til the sun comes up no way."

Sophia stared at him while she chewed through her food. That was one thing about kids that always unnerved Merle just a little. They didn't care if it was rude or not, they were going to stare if they thought they saw something worth staring at.

"What happened to your arm?" Sophia asked when she'd finally swallowed down the food.

That was the other thing about kids. They'd ask any damn question that popped into their heads, whether or not they had any right to ask it. Of course, Merle had also been known to ask a few questions he probably shouldn't have asked just because he was curious about the response that he might get.

Merle looked at his arm. He'd taken the blade off the cuff, as he often did when he didn't feel he'd have a need to use it, because he'd been afraid that he might accidentally do something to hurt the girl.

"Cut it off," Merle said. "Just the hand. Sawed it off with a hacksaw." Sophia winced and Merle checked himself. He wasn't sure if it was good mealtime conversation. "You asked," Merle offered as an apology.

"Did it hurt?" Sophia asked.

"Do you think it hurt?" Merle asked. Sophia nodded her head. "Then you got your answer."

"Why'd you do it?" Sophia asked.

"You full up of questions, ain't you?" Merle asked.

Sophia lowered her eyes to the table.

"Sorry," she said quietly, paying attention to her food instead of Merle. Merle was the one who felt sorry, though. He'd seen it enough at the rock quarry. Sophia was a kid who got herself checked quite often for doing very little. Her old man was the type, too, that didn't allow too much warning before he was checking someone with his hands instead of just his words. Merle had never seen him hit the girl, but he'd seen her Ma with bruises after Sophia had been warned about something. That wasn't the kind of thing a kid was quick to forget.

Merle cleared his throat.

"That police officer," Merle said. "He make it back to camp? When I ain't come back?"

"Shane?" Sophia asked.

"Another one," Merle said. "Come ridin' up in Atlanta. The day I didn't come back no more."

"Rick?" Sophia asked.

"Sounds as good as any damn thing else," Merle said. "Officer Friendly. Handcuffed me to a damn roof. Left me there. Left me for dead."

"They went to look for you," Sophia offered. "They left the camp. They went to look for you. It was the night that the Walkers came. They killed a bunch of people. They killed—they killed my dad."

Merle's stomach twisted a little at the news that a good bit of the camp had been killed. He wasn't crazy about all of them, but he still didn't particularly like the idea of them being simply eaten by Walkers. Ed Peletier wouldn't be someone that he could say that he'd miss, but Sophia had lost her old man when he'd departed the world. Merle knew what it was to lose your old man. Even if he wasn't worth mourning, it still didn't mean that it wasn't something of a blow.

"Sorry," Merle said.

"It's OK," Sophia responded. "You didn't come back with them."

"I couldn't stay on the roof but for so long," Merle said. "Sun started to fry my brain. Was too damn hot to be stuck up there. Only way off was..."

He held his arm up to finish the story. Sophia seemed to accept it, though, because she didn't ask him to elaborate.

"Your Ma get killed too?" Merle asked. "When your old man got eat?"

Sophia shook her head, but she didn't offer much of a response. Merle remembered the girl's mother pretty well. She was a decent cook. She could make a pretty decent meal out of just about anything that they brought her. It was a case of turning chicken shit into chicken salad sometimes. She was quiet and mousy. Her husband beating on her probably did a good bit to keep her shut up. She wasn't bad to look at, though, and she was soft. There was something appealing about a woman who looked so soft like that. That was the kind of woman that you wouldn't mind letting warm your bed for a little while.

Merle had taken the liberty of getting himself an eyeful of her more than once, and he hadn't missed that his little brother had done the same. To be honest, Merle was pleased the couple of times that he'd caught his brother's gaze trailing after the woman as she wandered around the camp. Merle had started to figure that there was something broken about his brother, since he so rarely got his head turned by a woman, so it was actually something of a relief to see him ogling Ed Peletier's wife—even if she was off-limits to him.

"She was with you?" Merle asked.

Sophia nodded her head.

"My lil' brother," Merle said. "Daryl. What happened to him? He get eat?"

Sophia shook her head.

"He's alive? Or he got killed some other way?"

"He was alive," Sophia said. "At least—the last time I saw him."

"What the hell happened?" Merle asked. "That they was alive an' you ended up out here. What the hell happened since I was gone?"

Sophia shrugged her shoulders.

"We left the rock quarry," Sophia said. "After the Walkers. We went to—we went to this big building. There was a doctor there and—we thought we could live there. But then the building blew up and we had to run from it to save ourselves. Jacqui didn't come with us. And then—we got stuck on the road. A bunch of those Walkers came and we all hid. A couple of them chased me. Rick came with me—but he said he couldn't kill them. He said that I had to wait for him to come back or I had to go back to the road. He left me in the water and he went to chase the Walkers."

"So why ain't'cha just went on back to the road?" Merle asked.

"I tried," Sophia said. "But there was a lot of the Walkers. I ran from them and—I got lost. I couldn't find the road. Then when I did find it? There was nobody there. But there are more Walkers on the road than there are in the houses. So I just go from one house to another and if there's a Walker then I go somewhere else. I stay in the empty houses and I eat what I can. I think—I think they left me."

Merle swallowed and sucked his teeth. He couldn't tell her that they didn't leave her because, more than likely, they did. If Officer Friendly was still running things, he would've left her behind in a heartbeat. That's what Merle felt, at least. If he could leave him handcuffed to a roof to die, he'd certainly leave behind a child that got lost in the woods. These days? It wouldn't take much to believe that any child lost anywhere was as good as dead—and fast, too.

"I been all up an' down these highways and roads," Merle said. "I ain't seen no sign of 'em. I'm sure they lookin' for you, though. Maybe just—figured you moved on an' they was lookin' somewhere else."

Merle didn't even believe his own lie. Even if he'd had to drag the mousy woman—Carol—kicking and screaming, Officer Friendly would've probably gotten them to leave if it suited him. The less kids they had to look out for, maybe, the better. Kids were a hassle, after all.

They were the only hope that any of them had that the whole sorry world wasn't going belly up and disappearing entirely, but they were a hassle.

At least, outside the safe walls of a place like Woodbury, they were. Woodbury was a place where people were growing families. It was a place where a kid could survive.

Merle cleared his throat again.

"You goin' on back with me," Merle said.

"What about my Mama?" Sophia asked.

Merle's throat ached at the sound of Sophia's voice. There was a certain shakiness there. Like any other child, she wanted her mother. Merle Dixon wasn't a decent substitute for anyone's mother.

"If she's out there," Merle said, "she's lookin' for you. An' I'm lookin' for my brother. Daryl—he's the sweet one." Merle laughed to himself. "If I know him? He'll be stickin' close to your Ma. Reckon we'll find 'em both when we find 'em."

"What if we don't find them?" Sophia asked.

"We gonna find 'em," Merle said. "But the first damn thing you gonna do is finish your food. Then we gonna get some sleep. Tomorrow—I'm takin' you back to where I'm livin' these days."

"Is it a house?" Sophia asked, still working on the makeshift meal that had been placed in front of her.

Merle hummed.

"An apartment," Merle said. "In a town. But—they's plenty of room for ya. We get there—you gonna meet some people. They gonna be real damn curious about who the hell you are an'—an' what'cha know an' seen. You listen to me. You don't tell 'em nothin' that I don't tell you to say, OK?"

"Are they dangerous?" Sophia asked.

"You just don't know nothin' about nobody these days," Merle said. "They ask you anything? You tell 'em you my—you tell 'em you my niece? OK? Your ole Uncle Merle's niece. Lost your parents. My brother—right? So as you can be my niece. My brother—your old man. And your Ma. Got split right up from 'em. Don't know if they alive or dead. Couldn't find 'em an' I found you holdin' up in the house. You hear me? Just like that. You my niece an' you don't know nothin' about where the hell your parents are. You hear?"

Sophia nodded.

"But—I'm happy to see my Uncle Merle," Sophia said.

"That's good," Merle said. "Make sure they don't start tryin' to take you away or somethin' for your own good. You done eatin' them beans?"

Sophia nodded her head. She'd finished almost half a sleeve of crackers and almost the whole can of beans. Merle figured it was a respectable amount for a kid her age. He reached across the table and dragged the bowl toward him. He pulled the crackers in his direction too.

"Them rooms upstairs is clean," Merle said. "No Walkers in the house. Sleep where it tickles your fancy. There ain't nothin' gettin' in tonight. We'll leave with the sun."

Sophia stood up from her chair. She stood there for a moment, staring at Merle, while he worked on finishing the food that she'd left behind. Finally, tired of being stared at, Merle addressed her.

"What?" He asked. "What is it you want? I ain't readin' you no damn bedtime story."

Sophia stepped forward and surprised Merle by practically launching herself at him. She wrapped her arms around him awkwardly and squeezed.

Merle couldn't quite recall the last time he'd been hugged. It felt awkward and unexpected, but it wasn't the most horrible thing that had happened to him in the last while.

"The hell was that for?" Merle asked when Sophia pulled away from him.

"If you're my Uncle Merle," Sophia said. "Then—we better look like we at least like hugging each other, right? I'm happy to see you and—you're happy to see me too. If we don't look like we like it, how are they ever gonna believe that I'm your niece?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"Smart kid," he said. "Go to bed, now. Leavin' with the sun."

Sophia smiled at him and nodded her head.

"Goodnight," she said. " _Uncle_ Merle."

Merle swallowed again. It was a strange thing to hear. Real or not, he didn't hate the sound of it.

"Night," Merle said. " _Soph_ ," he added once she'd already started bounding for the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **Daryl and Carol are coming up next. (But there's an order to everything.)**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"She's my niece," Merle said, his hand on Sophia's shoulder.

The Governor smiled at her. He liked kids. They were probably his favorite part about Woodbury. He could probably take or leave most of the people there, but he warmed particularly easy to children. He'd had a daughter, and Merle knew that, but he didn't know much of anything else surrounding the child. He could assume that she was dead, but the Governor didn't talk about her. What Merle knew, he only knew from having overheard Milton mention her once—and he was sure that was a slip of the tongue.

The Governor was a very private man.

"Beautiful little girl," the Governor said. "What's your name?"

"Sophia," Sophia responded. She turned her eyes up at Merle. "Soph."

"You didn't say you were looking for your niece," the Governor said to Merle. "You mentioned your brother but not your niece."

Merle shrugged his shoulders. He was a private enough man himself and he figured that the Governor could appreciate that.

"Didn't mention her Ma, neither," Merle said. "Figure—might be easier to find my brother." He shrugged again. "To be honest? Didn't figure Sophia here was any more alive than anybody else. Ain't a real good world for kids out there."

Merle wasn't sure, but he got the feeling from the Governor's expression that the man believed him.

"It's interesting that you found her," the Governor said. "Where'd you say you found her?"

"In one of them houses I went to check out," Merle said. "Alone. Weren't nobody else around."

"I got lost," Sophia offered quickly. "I ran away. There were Walkers and—and my parents were trying to keep them away from me. I got scared and I ran. I tried to find them and—and I couldn't find them. So I was just looking for them."

"You never found them again?" The Governor asked.

Sophia shook her head. Merle didn't care if she deviated a little from the story that she'd told him as long as she didn't give much away. He wanted her to stick to the basics. They'd rehearsed the story a dozen times in the truck on the way back to make sure that she had it straight. He wanted her to focus on the fact that she got separated from her parents and she didn't know a damn thing about anything else. So far, she was doing that pretty well.

"Such a shame," the Governor said. "A child your age should have her parents."

As if on cue, Sophia wrapped her arms around Merle's arm and hugged it.

"I was happy to see my Uncle Merle," Sophia said. "He said I could live with him."

"Figured it wouldn't be no big thing to ask," Merle offered. "I got plenty of room and she don't eat that much."

The Governor laughed to himself. He extended a hand and ruffled Sophia's hair slightly. She let it happen, not saying a word against the action.

"Of course she can stay," the Governor said. "You're one of the most important people in Woodbury, Merle. Any family of yours is family of mine. But what about your brother? Certainly you're not abandoning the search for him? For him and his wife?"

Merle shook his head.

"More'n ever now I wanna find 'em," Merle said. "Know he's out there. If Soph here is alive, then I'm sure he's gotta be alive somewhere. Chances are they lookin' for me as hard as I'm lookin' for them. They lookin' for her. Wanna find 'em for sure." Merle cleared his throat, taking his chances. "Would like to make sure I still get the chance to—to meet ever'body that comes by thinkin' they might wanna take up here."

Merle didn't miss the flash of something that covered the Governor's face quickly. The man knew he didn't miss it either. Merle wasn't an easy man to lie to. People could lie to him all they wanted, but he knew when he was being fed a bunch of horseshit. He might not call them out on it, but he knew it.

He also knew that there were some people who were welcomed into Woodbury and there were others who weren't. The Governor had his reasons for bringing in the ones that he did and denying the others and it wasn't Merle's place to question his judgment. Merle was just someone who lived there and worked there. He wasn't someone who made the big decisions. He took care of some of the distasteful assignments that the Governor gave him without question. His only request, really, was that he be allowed to meet everyone—whether they were staying or not—because he wanted to check for his brother.

"I believe that's always been the arrangement, Merle," the Governor responded.

"Just so it ain't changed," Merle said.

"It hasn't changed," the Governor said. "Tell me about what you found out there."

"A whole lotta nothin'," Merle said. "'Sides Soph."

"You found the houses, just as you were told you would?" The Governor asked.

Merle nodded his head and hummed in the affirmative.

"Every one marked on the map," Merle said. "Lot of 'em was hid so good out there that I wouldn'ta knowed they was out there if he hadn't marked 'em out like that. Checked every one. Got the whole inventory on the truck. Some food, but it ain't much. Couple bags of clothes that didn't look too bad. There was some supplies, but nobody was stocked up for what the hell was comin'."

"People?" The Governor asked.

"Nobody but Sophia," Merle said, shaking his head.

The Governor nodded his head.

"That's disappointing," he said. He glanced at Sophia and smiled at her. "I don't mean that you're disappointing. We're pleased to have you here. Welcome to Woodbury. I just meant—it's disappointing that we didn't find anybody else to bring to our town."

Sophia nodded her head at the man, but she clung tight to Merle's arm.

"Did you take what you wanted off the truck?" The Governor asked.

"To be honest," Merle said, "I didn't get nothin' out there that I wanted. Was gonna ask if I could take my payment out in trade."

"Trade?" The Governor asked.

"Everything I got in my apartment's just shit for me. I don't have nothin' for Soph there. Was hopin' I could take out what I was owed in some stuff for her. A bed. Some clothes. Maybe—a lil' baby or somethin' for her to...ya know...rock or whatever the hell she does with babies."

The Governor laughed to himself.

"Are you certain that you're interested in caring for your niece? I'm sure we could find someone who..."

"No," Merle said quickly, interrupting the man. "No—I don't wanna let nobody else tend to Soph. Just me. Lost her once. Lost everybody. You'll understand but—I don't think I'ma be lettin' her outta my sight. Not if I don't got to."

The Governor nodded his head.

"Understood," he said. "When you're out on runs I'm sure someone will be more than happy to sit with her. Someone of your choosing. Take whatever you want from storage. Get her a few nice things. She should have whatever she wants. Books and toys, clothes, let her pick some things out. If anyone says anything to you, send them to speak with me."

Merle nodded his head. He thanked the Governor and then nudged Sophia by shaking his arm. She thanked the man too and he warmly told her that she was welcome to anything that pleased her, bending down close to her level, and then he patted her head again before he made her promise that she wouldn't hesitate to tell him if she should need anything.

When they walked away, Merle guided Sophia through the streets of Woodbury toward the store that they used to deal in items that they kept in storage. When they were a fair distance away from the Governor, Sophia looked over her shoulder and then pulled on Merle's hand.

"He seems nice," she said, in barely more than a whisper.

"He's real nice," Merle growled back, barely giving sound to his own voice. "Just you keep your damn mouth shut like I told you to."

"Why?" Sophia asked. "I don't know anything. There isn't much I could tell him."

"You don't know what's enough and what's too much," Merle said. "So—far as he's concerned? You don't know nothin'. There's nice people an' then there's nice people that'cha don't trust too damn much."

"You don't trust him?" Sophia asked. Merle hissed at her. She apparently took that as answer enough to her question. "Why?"

"Some things you better not knowin'," Merle said. "Keep walkin' and stop askin' so damn many questions."

"If you don't trust him," Sophia asked quietly, ignoring Merle's request that she stop asking questions, then why are you still here?"

"When I cut my hand off, I was in Atlanta," Merle said. Seeing an alley, he dragged the girl into it and stood next to the building to get her off the sidewalk and away from any prying ears that might pass by. The streets of Woodbury, during the day, were always hustling with the residents. To make it look like he had a reason to stop, Merle pulled a cigarette from his pocket. When he struggled a moment to get the lighter lit, Sophia reached and took it from him. She flicked it to life and held it out to him. He leaned down to light the cigarette. "Thanks," he said.

"It's the least I can do," Sophia responded, handing him back the lighter that he pocketed.

Merle laughed to himself. She was a skinny ass little kid—all knees and elbows—but she wasn't a dumb little kid. Sometimes, though, she could say things that sounded a little out of place. It was like she heard them somewhere and she decided to put them to use. She'd done it more than once in the truck and Merle found that it was funny to him every time she did it.

"Listen—when I was in Atlanta? Cut off my hand? I was bleedin' all over the damn place. Tryin' to stay alive fightin' off Walkers and figurin' out what the hell I was doin' and where I was gonna go. I was damn near dead. Knowed it weren't gonna be long. Outta no damn where the Governor showed up with a couple people from Woodbury. They swooped me up. I woke up here with the doc pumpin' drugs in my veins—my stump all patched up," Merle said. "Maybe he ain't the greatest damn person in the world, but he saved my life. I owed him for that. Worked off that debt pretty quick, but it ain't a bad life here. Got food and shelter. Sleep good at night. Out there? I didn't have no damn body. Same as you stuck up in that house. In here? I'm a part of somethin'."

"Something you don't trust," Sophia said.

"We don't always pick our lives, Soph," Merle said. "Figured your ass'd know that by now."

Sophia nodded her head.

"Yeah," she said quietly.

"Point is, we can kinda pick and choose some shit now," Merle said. "More damn opportunity for a man like me in this world than there ever was in the old one."

"What kind of man are you?" Sophia asked.

"Prob'ly the kind you ought notta ask that question to," Merle said. "I'm bad fuckin' news."

"I don't think so," Sophia offered.

Merle swallowed back his reaction to the words and focused on the cigarette. The smoke only made his lungs feel tighter than they already did at the moment, but he pushed through to keep from giving himself away to the girl. She didn't have to know everything about him, after all, even if she was stuck with him now.

"Just do what the hell I tell you, OK? You don't know shit about shit. You stick close to me an' who I tell you to stick with," Merle said. "We got a deal?"

Sophia nodded her head.

"We've got a deal," she said. "Are we going to find my Mama?"

Merle hesitated, but finally he nodded.

"We're sure gonna try, kid," Merle said. "Come on—let's go pick you out some shit. Get you whatever the hell you want. The Governor give us his name to shop on and that means it's damn near 'bout to be Christmas in your world. That's one damn thing about him—he can't resist no kid. Yessir—you 'bout to get whatever the hell you want of whatever the hell we got."

"I don't need much," Sophia said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Had a feelin' you might say that, too," Merle responded.

"But I would like a doll," Sophia said.

"Then you gonna get the one that tickles your fancy," Merle said. "Just don't be thinkin' your ole Uncle Merle's gonna be playin' dollies with ya 'cause that shit? It ain't never gonna happen."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Maybe, sooner or later, it all ended in fire.

It certainly seemed true to Daryl that everything good eventually met some kind of fiery death, whether it was literal or figurative fire. Everything ended quickly and it ended completely.

By the time that Daryl got away from the herd and found a place where the swarm of Walkers seemed unable or unwilling to notice him, thanks to their interest in the flames that drew them steadily in one direction, everything and everyone was gone.

The rest of his group had already fled. One vehicle after another, their red taillights visible to him in the darkness, had left the farm in a hurry. They'd driven anywhere and any way they could to avoid the Walkers that came in numbers too great to be controlled. He'd spoken to none of them except T-Dog and he'd only heard from him that they were headed for the highway—at least that's what T-Dog had been told.

They were fleeing because the farm was gone. The fire was spreading even as Daryl sat there on his bike and watched the barn collapsing piece by piece. The grass caught on fire and, dry from Georgia's common lack of rain, it burned quickly. The fire was already running toward the house, swallowing up everything in its path as it went.

Daryl had more hope for the farm than he realized. It was only watching it burn that he really became aware of how much hope he was putting into something that didn't really belong to him. He got the same empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that he got leaving behind the trashy little house that he and his brother had called home when the Walkers first showed up. He remembered a certain sadness when they left the rock quarry and the promise of something safe that it had given them. He recalled the loss he felt when the CDC exploded and they laid to rest the idea that they might somehow make a life there.

All that loss, though, and Daryl had never really given up on the idea that somewhere there was a home to be had.

It was a feeling he'd had since childhood. Even in the worst parts of his life, when his mother had died and his literal home was reduced to ashes, Daryl had felt like somewhere there was a home for him. There was a place, somewhere, that he would someday call his "place". Every now and again he'd lost the feeling entirely, falling into some kind of pit of despair where he temporarily believed that there was nothing but pain and cruelty in the world, but the feeling always returned to him eventually.

It had been Carol that had brought the feeling back to him the last time he'd lost it. She'd brought it back to him, without even meaning to, at the CDC. Even if the night was clumsy and born of drunkenness, the few moments he spent in her arms renewed his belief that there was a chance for a future. There was still a chance to find something he'd been missing.

Somewhere, Daryl would find a home that would be his and nothing would take it away from him.

But it seemed that everything ended in fire.

T-Dog had told him they were headed for the highway before he'd driven off, trying desperately to save himself and his passengers. He'd told Daryl, too, that Carol was lost. She'd fallen on the farm. She was simply gone. He didn't know exactly where she was or how she'd gone down, but she was gone—he'd lost track of her when he'd been trying to get whoever he could into the truck.

Daryl could look for her once the flames burned out, but he wouldn't find anything and he knew it. He'd fail at finding her the same way he'd failed at finding her daughter.

He still believed, though, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, that Sophia was out there. The girl wasn't dead. He wanted to believe, too, that her mother hadn't died either.

So he watched the flames and prayed—if the hope that he sent up into the atmosphere was the same thing as praying—for some kind of sign that it wasn't all over. He waited for something that would tell him that he wasn't foolish for believing that there was still some kind of hope for the future.

He'd wait, too, until he couldn't wait any longer. They'd already left him behind. They'd wait for him at the highway—and if he didn't show up, they'd leave him too.

But he'd wait as long as he could for some kind of sign that it simply didn't end this way.

When he got the very sign that he'd been hoping for, Daryl didn't quite believe it at first. He followed the sound with his eyes and saw her running as quickly as she could away from the Walkers that had caught her scent and were in pursuit of something to eat that was much more appealing than whatever the flames might offer them.

Carol was almost at the road before Daryl cranked his bike and rode toward her. He got there in time to offer her refuge on the bike just moments before the creatures caught her. As soon as she was on, arms wrapped around him, Daryl pulled off.

Dodging the Walkers on the road wasn't an easy task, but Carol worked with him like she'd been riding bitch for years so he didn't have to work extra hard to maneuver the bike through the obstacles that the animated Dead created for him.

The Walkers pushed them a great deal further out of the way than Daryl wanted to go and, for just a moment, he was sure they were simply lost. Like a beacon, though, or some extra sign of the hope he'd asked for, Daryl found a sign for the highway. He turned onto the highway and, riding the opposite direction of what the laws had once allowed, he steered the bike back toward the place he knew they'd be meeting—the place they'd lost Sophia when the whole thing had begun that had led them to the farm in the first place.

When he found the group, they were all out of their vehicles and they were standing around looking at each other like they had no idea what to do next. Daryl stopped the bike and stood still to give Carol the opportunity to get off. Once she was safely on her feet, Daryl got off the bike and walked over to take inventory of who was left.

"We whole?" Daryl asked, skimming over the familiar faces.

They weren't whole—they hadn't been for a while. It seemed at every turn they lost someone. Daryl barely had the time to get close to people before they were gone. Amy was gone at the rock quarry. Jim on the road. Jacqui at the CDC. Dale taken down by a stray Walker at the farm.

They hadn't come out of this whole, either. Daryl knew it before anyone spoke to confirm that his headcount came up short.

"Patricia," Beth said.

"Shane?" Daryl asked.

"Dead," Rick said quickly.

"Andrea?" Daryl asked.

"We had to leave without her," Lori said.

"She went down," T-Dog said. "She's dead."

"You know she's dead?" Daryl asked. "You seen her bit?"

"I saw her go down," T-Dog said.

"She saved me," Carol offered, walking up behind him. "A Walker took her down."

"You saw her get bit?" Daryl asked, directing his question to Carol.

Carol shook her head.

"I ran," Carol said. "I should've helped her but—I didn't have anything to fight them off with. I ran. I was trying to get away. They were closing in on us."

"So nobody seen her get bit," Daryl said.

"We saw her go down," Lori said. "Carol ran and we couldn't get to her. We couldn't get to Andrea. She went down. There's no way she survived that."

"But you don't know she didn't," Daryl said. "You left Carol behind too, didn't you? Told me she didn't make it off. But here she is. If I'da left with you? She wouldn'ta made it. She'da been dead because we all took off and left her. Left her there to just die. You leave Andrea that way?"

Everyone looked a little sheepish and Daryl didn't mind that entirely. He nodded his head at the lot of them.

"We'll go look for her," Daryl said.

"We can't go back there," Rick said. "It's overrun, Daryl. Walkers are everywhere. The fire's spreading. We can't go back there."

"If she's alive? We can't just leave her there, neither," Daryl said.

"She's dead, Daryl," Lori said.

"We've got to move on," Rick said. "We can't go back to the farm and we can't stay here. The Walkers will catch up to us soon."

Daryl swallowed. He liked Andrea. He'd always liked the woman. Even when she'd been so sorry over the loss of her sister that she wanted to off herself, he'd still liked her. He thought suicide was the coward's way out, but he still liked Andrea. He didn't want her to commit suicide because he didn't want to see her die, plain and simple. He didn't really want to see anyone else die. The loss was starting to weigh on him like a stone around his neck.

And, maybe, a part of him could understand the grief that had driven Andrea to want to kill herself, even if he didn't agree with how she chose to react to it. She'd lost her sister. He could understand that. He'd lost his brother. He didn't know if Merle was alive, but he didn't know for sure if he was dead, either.

Rick had left Merle behind in Atlanta. He'd left Sophia behind in the woods. And, now, he wanted to leave Andrea behind on the farm.

Daryl shook his head.

"No," Daryl said. "We don't leave her behind. We don't just leave people behind no more. It's Andrea today. Coulda been Carol. Who do we leave behind tomorrow, Rick?"

"It's not like that, brother," Rick offered.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"I ain't your brother," Daryl said. "You'da left me behind too. You're right. We can't stay here. Go on. Move on. It's time to go."

"What are you doing, Daryl?" Hershel asked.

"I'm goin' back," Daryl said. "I'm goin' to look for Andrea. Dead or alive, I'ma know. One way or another. Go on. Go where you're going. I'll catch up to you—or I won't. Either way, though, I'm goin' back. If she's there, I'll find her."

Daryl walked back toward the bike. He could hear them talking to him, but he didn't listen to their words. They weren't going to talk him out of this. They weren't going to talk him into staying just to be left behind when the next emergency arose.

"No hard feelings," he called over his shoulder. "I hope I catch up to you later. Good luck."

As Daryl passed by Carol, he stopped. Still ignoring the protests from Rick and the others, he put his hand on Carol's shoulder. He shook his head at her.

"I can't do it," Daryl said. "I can't keep just knowin' we leavin' people behind. Merle. Sophia. Andrea. I can't just keep knowin' we just leavin' people behind to whatever might happen. I gotta know. One way or another. You make your choice. Go with them or you go with me. I can't guarantee you gonna live either way, but I can promise you that—you go with me? I won't never leave you behind."

Carol stared at him for just a second and she nodded her head. A smiled played on her lips that he almost didn't believe because of the tears brimming in her eyes.

"There isn't any question about it," Carol said. "I'm going with you."

Daryl swallowed.

"You mean that?" He asked.

Carol nodded her head.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be," Carol said with something like a short explosion of laughter. "I—don't have anywhere else."

Daryl nodded at her. He gestured toward the bike, finding himself unable to say anything to her because of the knot in his throat that was blocking off his air. She started toward the bike and he swallowed a few times to get control of the tightness in his throat. She was really going with him. She was choosing him over the group. When he got on the bike, she crawled on behind him without hesitation and wrapped her arms around him.

They may very well be riding into certain death and Carol knew that, but she was there. She was wrapped around him and she was going—wherever it might be that they were going.

"Good luck to you!" Daryl called as soon as he found his voice again. "We'll be seein' you. You ready?" He called back to Carol.

She squeezed him in response.

"Let's go get Andrea," she said into his ear. "I'm with you."


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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The sun was working in their favor by the time they made their way back to the farm, taking the long way around to keep from running straight into the back-side of the herd of Walkers before they were prepared to meet them. Daryl pulled the bike up to the edge of the woods, parking it so that they could somewhat use it for a fast getaway if such a need should arise. As soon as Carol was off the bike, he followed after her.

Daryl could kill Walkers with an arrow. It wasn't ideal, but it was possible. Carol needed a weapon, and she had nothing, so he offered her his knife. The Walkers seemed to be thinning, heading off through the wooded area on the other side of the farm, and most of them that were left were interested in the fire that still burned in areas where it hadn't completely consumed the structures of the farm.

In such a short period of time, the farm was almost entirely laid to waste.

Daryl and Carol had come for a reason, though, and they weren't leaving until they'd at least done the best they could to find Andrea.

"Stay close to me," Daryl said, keeping his voice low for a moment. "If you can, you go to them. Step up, stab 'em, free your knife, step back. Do it again."

"Why?" Carol asked.

"You in control," Daryl said. "Gives you a second to rest between 'em too. If they're comin' to you? You got no choice but to keep goin'. If you stay in control, they won't bunch up on you as bad."

"As many as there are," Carol said. She didn't finish the statement, but Daryl thought he understood it. As many as there were, there were no guarantees that they wouldn't bunch up on them anyway.

Daryl hummed at her.

"Just keep your distance from the ones that's burning," Daryl said. "Lemme shoot them and just get the arrows back. I don't want you gettin' burned."

"Won't you get burned trying to get the arrows back?" Carol asked.

Daryl laughed to himself. She was concerned about him. She was genuinely concerned about him. It was strange to him to have someone who worried about him—if he'd eaten enough, if he'd be hurt, how he was feeling. But he didn't hate it. Not at all.

"With them already down, I got a good chance of bein' able to reach in there smart like," Daryl said. "Tryin' to stab 'em when they movin' and burning at the same time? You got a lot better chance of not bein' able to be careful about it."

"How are we going to find Andrea?" Carol asked.

Daryl swallowed.

"Just need you to know we might be lookin' for a Walker, OK?" Daryl said.

Carol nodded her head.

"I know," Carol said.

"Or—somethin' that ain't even fit to walk," Daryl said. "So—where'd you last see her?"

"Over by the shed," Carol said. "On the other side of the house. That was the last time I saw her."

Daryl nodded his head.

"We make our way there," he said. "We search that area. If she went down around there? We'll find her. If she's walkin'...we might not find her. Seems like a good bit of the herd's already movin' on. If she got caught up with them, she might be movin' on too."

Carol nodded her head at him again.

"What if she's not dead, Daryl?" Carol asked. "I mean—what if we're not looking for a corpse? That's what we're hoping, right? That Andrea could survive this?"

"That's what we're hoping," Daryl confirmed. "And if we don't find no body in that area? We take our chances. Call out to her a couple of times. Make our way around and back to here callin' for her. She don't call back—and the Walkers get to be too much? We'll figure out what we're doing."

"You mean we leave her," Carol said.

"We do our best not to," Daryl said. "But we don't know no more if she's alive or dead. Don't know if she's here or walkin' with that herd. Don't know nothin'. We'll stay as long as we can. Find what we can find. But—I don't guess we got any promises that we're leavin' here with her."

Carol sucked in a breath and let it out.

"Let's go," she said.

"OK," Daryl said. "But—just one thing first?"

"What?" Carol asked.

Daryl leaned toward her, not sure if the kiss he was requesting was entirely appropriate as they stood surrounded by the smell of burning corpses, but Carol didn't reprimand him for the request. Instead, she filled it with a kiss that was more enthusiastic than Daryl would have expected it could be. When they broke apart, Carol offered Daryl a soft smile.

"Stay close to me," Daryl said.

"Be careful," Carol responded.

Daryl nodded his head at her and grabbed her by the arm, tugging her along with him as they slowly made their way toward the farm, hoping to put off drawing the attention of the Walkers away from the fire for as long as possible.

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They fought against the Walkers that were left and searched the farm until Daryl was covered in Walker blood and his arms were starting to shake from exhaustion. Even if she wasn't going to complain about a thing, he could tell that Carol was exhausted too. Daryl didn't know how long they spent scouring the farm, but by the time he was ready to throw in the towel, most of the Walkers that hadn't left were put down in piles and the fires around the area had mostly burned out from reaching places where they had no more fuel to feed them.

Andrea was gone. There wasn't a sign of her anywhere. Scraps of the people they knew they lost were found, but Andrea's body wasn't there.

They'd called for her, risking calling back the Walkers that had decided to move on, but she hadn't answered. They'd gotten no response at all.

Finally, Daryl had pulled Carol the long way around the farm and had finally ended up back at the road with her. She kept calling for Andrea, even as they reached the road, but finally Daryl caught her by the shoulders and shook his head at her.

"We can't keep going," Daryl said. "We gotta use what's left of the day to get somewhere to take cover for the night. Find us another farmhouse for a night. Find one with a pump that's workin'. Get a bath. Get some water to drink. Somethin' to eat."

"We're just leaving her," Carol said, her voice shaking a little. Daryl didn't know if it was because she was distraught over the loss of Andrea or if it was coming from the fact that she'd strained it so much calling out for the woman. Daryl frowned at her.

"She left us," Daryl said. He shook his head at Carol. "Andrea ain't on this farm an' you know it. She ain't out there. We covered the whole damn thing and some distance besides. Andrea's gone. Now—whether she's runnin' or she's...she's just walkin'...I don't know. But what I do know is she's left. She ain't here."

Carol shook her head.

"She can't be dead," Carol said.

Daryl knew that Carol knew very well that Andrea could, in fact, be dead. What she meant to say was simply that she wasn't prepared to accept that the woman was dead.

"She might be," Daryl said. "But—she might not be. Could be she realized she was left. She took off on her own. Maybe—she's done made it back to the highway by now. Coulda took her a vehicle and gone off on her own. Maybe she's lookin' for us as hard as we were lookin' for her."

"If she's gone," Carol said, "like that? She thinks we didn't come back for her. She thinks nobody cared enough to come back for her. She's out there and she thinks we just left her." Carol shook her head and looked around them. There wasn't much to see now. It looked like a wasteland. When Carol looked back at Daryl there was a tear that was smudging the soot and blood that had stained her face. "She's just like Sophia—and she thinks we just left her. We didn't care enough to even try to save her."

"Stop it," Daryl said quickly and more loudly than he meant to. He shook his head at her, checking his tone. "Stop. Sophia—she don't think we left her. She knows we're lookin' for her. Gonna keep lookin' for her. Just—gotta figure out where. How."

Carol shook her head. She swallowed and Daryl saw that it was painful for her to do.

"If Andrea can't live out here? Daryl—Sophia..." Carol said. She couldn't finish. Her words broke off when her voice cracked. Daryl couldn't bear to look at the expression on her face, so he pulled her into him in a hug and rubbed his hand along her back.

"Andrea's alive," Daryl said, holding Carol against him. "I know it. She is. She's runnin'. Saving herself 'cause she knew she didn't have nobody to save her. Sophia? She's alive. I know that too. I just do. I can feel it. And we're gonna find Sophia. We still are. We'd fine Andrea too, but she's just runnin' too fast for us. We know the direction Sophia was headin' in. We'll just head that way too. We don't try to catch up with the group, OK? We just—ignore what the hell they're doin' and we just go in the direction Sophia was going. OK?"

Carol pulled away from him.

"What if we don't find her?" Carol asked.

"You askin' about Sophia now or Andrea?" Daryl asked.

"Both," Carol said. "I guess. But mostly Sophia."

"Andrea's gonna take care of Andrea," Daryl said. "And we're gonna find Sophia."

"You can't be sure of that," Carol said.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"And you can't be sure we won't," Daryl said. "But my thought is better'n yours, so we're gonna go with mine. First thing we gotta do, though, is find somewhere for the night. And we gotta do it quick. We need water and food. We both need baths. We gotta take care of us to be able to take care of Sophia. We ain't no good to her if we both die out here. We'll find us a place for the night. We'll get some rest and in the morning things'll look different. We'll figure out where we're going and how we're gonna keep combing these woods to look for Sophia."

"These woods that were full of Walkers last night, Daryl? These woods that—the biggest herd we've ever seen passed through?" Carol asked. "You really think..."

"I really think," Daryl said, nodding his head and cutting Carol off before she could work herself up anymore. "I really think. I do. I really think that—the group is so far damn gone from us that we ain't never catchin' up to them. I really think Andrea took off runnin' to save herself an' that's what she's done. I really think Sophia was smart enough to take some kinda cover from the herd and—I really think they wouldn'ta noticed her if she weren't out in the open. They was all too set on what they were after. We could just about pass by the last of 'em today and they didn't notice us because they was following right along after each other too hard. I really think Sophia's still out there and I really think that we're gonna find her. But—I gotta know that you're with me. I gotta know—we're in this together. Because right now? Whether you meant to or not, Carol, you got stuck with me. I don't think there's any going back to the group now."

Carol sucked in a breath and let it out.

"I'm not stuck with you," Carol said. "I meant to be with you. I trust you. A thousand times more than I trust anyone that's gone on with Rick—or even Rick."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Even though I ain't kept a single one of my promises yet?" Daryl asked.

"You haven't really broken one yet," Carol said.

"What do you say?" Daryl asked.

"Let's find somewhere for the night," Carol said. "And—I'll cook whatever you can find for us to eat."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Couldn't ask for a better deal than that," Daryl said. "We'll head in the direction Sophia was goin'. There's bound to be another farm in that direction—we'll figure the rest out when we got shelter for the night."

He pushed Carol toward the bike and she went. She only cast one last glance back at the farm before she took her seat behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

"I do hope Andrea's OK too," Carol said, leaning her head against Daryl's back for just a second before he stood up to start the bike.

"She's fine," Daryl said. "Who knows, she might even be better'n we are right now."


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl didn't have a plan. They had nothing specific. They would move forward, but it would basically be on blind faith and the belief that, somehow, Carol's daughter could survive this world and they could somehow find her.

Daryl knew the girl's early trajectory, but that was it. He knew where she'd started and he knew a few locations she'd moved to. Now he was simply trying to guess where the child might end up.

The Walkers that had come through in the massive herd had trampled everything in their path. They seemed to be gone now, moving on except for a few stragglers, but they'd left behind destruction. When they walked, they didn't care what they knocked down, trampled, or plowed through. Walkers just walked. Most of them that got left behind, it seemed, had gotten themselves caught one way or another and hadn't been smart enough to figure a way out of their trap. Eventually, losing scent or sight of anything that interested them, they seemed to lose interest in even trying to untangle themselves.

But there was no way that Daryl was going to find Sophia by looking for tracks. He wasn't that much of an expert tracker, and he wasn't sure that any tracker could accomplish such a task.

He was going to keep the hope alive, though, for Carol as long as he could. They'd keep moving in the direction that Sophia had set for herself. They'd keep wandering and looking for the girl.

They might as well, they had nothing else to do with their time but survive.

Maybe they'd get lucky.

"You gotta eat somethin'," Daryl said, pushing the plate of rabbit in Carol's direction.

She sighed and picked at the meat. She'd barely put more than a bite in her mouth since she'd served them both the food that she'd cooked over a small fire Daryl had built in the fireplace.

"I'm just not hungry," Carol said.

"You haven't eat a thing all day," Daryl said. "I know. You weren't snackin' on nothin' while we was wadin' through Walkers on the farm."

"I'm just not hungry," Carol said. "I keep thinking about Sophia. I keep thinking about Andrea. Daryl—that could've been me. If it hadn't been for you? They would've left me behind. I wouldn't have made it."

Daryl shook his head.

"Don't do no good to think about things like that," Daryl said. "You woulda made it."

"You know that I wouldn't have," Carol said.

"I don't know that," Daryl said. He laughed to himself. "There ain't much I've known for certain in a long time. But what I do know is you gotta eat. Soph's gonna need you. Someone like me? Hell—I ain't cut out to take care of a kid on my own. It's just not in my blood. Ain't sayin' it can't be done, but me and her both'd be a whole lot better off with a hand. Eat. Keep your strength up for Sophia. And if you don't do it for her? Do it 'cause I asked you too?" Daryl swallowed, remember something that Carol had said to him before. He shook his head at her. "Can't lose you too."

Carol sighed again and reached for another bite of rabbit. Daryl watched her eat it and he pushed the plate toward her after every bite to urge her on to take the next. Eventually the plate would end up in her lap or she'd eat all the meat. It was really a race against time to see which would happen first.

The rabbit was small. If Carol had eaten the whole thing by herself, it probably wouldn't have been enough for a decent meal. Daryl knew that he ate well over half of it and the beans they'd found as well. Still, Carol acted almost stuffed when she finally pushed the plate back toward him and shook her head.

"Enough," Carol said. "I don't want it, Daryl. Not tonight."

"In the morning, then," Daryl said. "I'll find us somethin' for breakfast. Before we leave."

"Where are we going?" Carol asked. "Do you know, Daryl?"

"Lookin' for Sophia," Daryl said. "That's about all I got right now. But—it'll do for now. She was movin' place to place lookin' for what she needed to get through another night. We'll do the same."

Carol nodded her head.

"What if she was in this house, Daryl?" Carol asked. "What if—Sophia was here? What if we're right where she was?"

Daryl thought he saw a hint of a smile on Carol's lips at the thought that she might simply be in the same space that her daughter had occupied.

"She prob'ly was," Daryl said. "Maybe sat right here an' eat somethin'. Maybe—some of them empty packets and cans and shit was Sophia's dinner. Just as possible it's her as anybody else."

"Do you really believe that?" Carol asked.

"I believe it's just as likely to be true as it is not to be," Daryl said. "I also believe it's gettin' late. We oughta get some rest. You look like you're about ready to fall out that chair and it wouldn't hurt either of us to sleep."

Carol nodded her head at him, but she looked a little disappointed.

"What's wrong?" Daryl asked.

"I was—thinking we could go to bed," Carol said. "But—I was hoping that..." She stopped and shook her head at him. She stood up. "Never mind, let's get some sleep."

Carol started past him to leave the kitchen and Daryl reached a hand out, catching her hand as she passed by.

"What is it?" He asked.

"I feel—silly asking," Carol said. "Presumptuous?"

Daryl swallowed. He got a feeling in his gut that he already knew what she wanted to ask. If she wanted to ask him what he thought she might, then he wanted her to ask. More than anything, at that moment, he wanted her to ask what he hoped she wanted to ask.

"Ask," Daryl urged.

"I don't want," Carol said, but Daryl cut her off before she could say anything else.

"Whatever you ask for? You gonna get it," Daryl said. "If I can make it happen."

Carol swallowed. She looked a little uneasy, like she wasn't sure if she believed him, but she nodded her head.

"I was hoping you'd share a room with me," Carol said. "Share a bed? I'd prefer not to sleep alone."

Daryl nodded his head. He felt a little wave of disappointment. Sharing a bed with Carol would make him happy—far happier than he really cared to admit—but it wasn't exactly what he'd hoped she would ask.

"Yeah," Daryl said, standing up. "Of course. Safer that way. More comfortable, too."

He didn't try to really hide his disappointment. He might have wanted to, but he was too tired to put the effort into it.

"I was hoping," Carol said, "that maybe—we didn't have to go to sleep right away?"

"You mean?" Daryl asked. He swallowed. "I'm not good at readin' your mind. Whatever you're thinking? You gotta tell me. Otherwise? I won't take chances. I don't wanna—scare you off or nothin'."

Carol laughed to herself.

"It's the end of the world," Carol said. "And—we're alone together. It would take a lot more than just—reading me wrong to scare me off. But—you're not reading me wrong, Daryl. Come to bed with me? We'll sleep later."

Daryl swallowed, his chest feeling tight. He nodded his head.

"You tell me which room you want," Daryl said. "I'm right behind ya."

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It had been so long since Michonne had seen another actual living human being that she'd begun to believe that she was the last person standing.

Of course, one of the reasons that she hadn't seen another human being in so long was because she mostly avoided anywhere she knew that people would be likely to go in an effort to save themselves. The people she'd seen since leaving Atlanta hadn't exactly been the kind of people that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

She'd rather be alone.

At least, that's what she'd been telling herself.

When Michonne heard the woman running through the woods and heard her struggling against the dead, Michonne had immediately known that she was living. The living moved differently than the dead. They made different sounds than the dead. Surrounded by the dead, the living sounded out of place in the world. It wasn't their world anymore.

By the time Michonne found the woman's exact location, she was close to losing her fight for survival. She was down and it didn't look like she had it in her to get up again. Besides that, she was unarmed.

Michonne quickly removed the heads of the dead that were after the woman with one quick pass of her blade. Their bodies dropped as their heads landed some short distance away. As they fell, Michonne found herself face to face with the woman. The blonde, on her back in the damp leaves, stared at Michonne with an expression of absolute terror on her face. Michonne wasn't sure if it was left over from her experiences with the dead or if she'd simply let this world get to her enough that she was truly terrifying to the woman.

When her pets growled behind her, Michonne reminded herself that they might startle the blonde as well. After all, she might not understand yet that they were noisy but harmless.

Michonne pushed down the hood she'd been using to keep her ears warm from the slight chill of the coming autumn. She sheathed her katana and she offered the hand not holding the chains of her pets out to the blonde.

"If I were going to kill you," Michonne said, when the blonde didn't immediately take her hand, "you'd be dead already."

The blonde reached her hand up and let Michonne help her to her feet.

"Thank you," the blonde said.

Michonne nodded at her.

"What are you doing out here without a weapon?" Michonne asked.

"I had guns," the blonde said. "But—I ran out of bullets."

"That's why guns are the most useless weapon in the world," Michonne said.

"It was all I had," the blonde responded, looking a little offended.

"You should find something else," Michonne said. "A knife. A machete."

"A sword?" The woman asked.

"If you can find one," Michonne responded.

"I'm Andrea," Andrea said.

"Michonne," Michonne responded.

"Thanks for saving me, Michonne," Andrea said. "I've been—running for what seems like two days."

Michonne laughed to herself. That was why the blonde's entire body was shaking. She was terrified and exhausted. Likely she was hungry and dehydrated. She was probably at the point of being close to actual collapse.

"Have you eaten while you were running?" Michonne asked.

Andrea shook her head.

"I was on a farm," Andrea said. "With a group. A huge herd of Walkers came through. I got separated from everyone. Left behind. I didn't have any choice except to run. One by one, the guns that I had ran out of bullets."

Michonne nodded her head to acknowledge the woman's story.

Her first instinct might have been to simply walk off and leave the woman to fend for herself. She'd saved her from the dead that had her down. Walkers, as the blonde had called them. She didn't owe Andrea anything else. She could leave, right now, guilt free. She could wish the woman good luck in finding a weapon, water, and food when she looked barely able to keep on her feet much longer.

But something kept Michonne from doing that.

"Come on," Michonne said. "There's a place not too far from here. I was going to check it out. Get some supplies. You can go with me. If you think you can stay on your feet?"

"I'm fine," Andrea said, clearly trying to straighten herself up and appear stronger than she felt at the moment.

"I'm sure you are," Michonne said. "But you're going to need to rest. You'll need some water. A weapon. We'll go for the supplies and I'll take you somewhere you can rest. Then—you can move on. Whenever you're ready."

Michonne didn't exactly tell the woman that she had to move on, but she didn't invite her to stay either. She simply jerked the chains of her pets and continued walking in the direction that she was going. She looked behind her, once, to see Andrea still standing in place.

"Are you able to walk?" Michonne asked.

"I can walk," Andrea responded.

"Then start doing it," Michonne said. "I won't wait forever."

She walked off, pretending that she was happy to leave Andrea behind, but she honestly found that she was relieved to hear the crunching of the leaves that told her Andrea was behind her. She kept glancing, as imperceptibly as she could, over her shoulder to make sure that the blonde was keeping up with her and that she was unbothered by any of the dead that wandered around them.

Michonne told herself that she'd help the woman get her strength back and get back on her feet. Then she'd insist that it was time for Andrea to move on.

Michonne would rather be alone.

At least, that's what she'd been telling herself.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"You promised," Sophia whined.

Merle pushed her doll at her and Sophia took it almost reluctantly. He pushed her by the shoulder toward the twin bed that marked her space. Merle's apartment was small and the only place he'd found to make her a bedroom was the living room itself. To try to give her some privacy, because he assumed that little girls might need such a thing, Merle had hung a few sheets around the bed from some string he tacked up at the cracks where the ceiling met the walls.

It wasn't perfect, but it was the best he could do to give her a room of her own.

"Don't do me like that," Merle protested, passing through the curtain into Sophia's small little space. She sat down on the bed and drew her legs up under her. She was frowning at him and giving him the damn doe eyes.

Merle never meant to be a parent. He figured shit like that wasn't in the cards for a man like him. He'd barely had a family to call his own when he was a kid and one was supposed to be provided for him. He surely didn't know how the hell to go about making one. To make a family, he'd need a woman. And not just any woman would do—not for a real family. It would have to be a woman that had staying power and happened to have it for a man like Merle Dixon. That right there was a pretty tall order for the world in any of the shapes that Merle had seen it take so far. Only after he crossed that hurdle would the rest of the family fall into place.

Merle wasn't the kind of man that women married. He wasn't even the kind of man that women saw more than once or twice or wanted anything from that wouldn't last a couple of hours, at the most, and end in awkward conversation.

He certainly wasn't the kind of man who took care of kids and did all that fatherly shit. Merle had never had a father worth mentioning and he'd never even been around a kid.

He'd spent most of his life knowing that he'd never really have a family—at least not one that extended beyond a mother that he'd lost so long ago she was a faded memory and a kid brother that Merle was sure, one day, would do alright for himself and leave Merle behind in the wreckage that he'd created for himself.

But now? Merle was the only thing that Sophia had. He was Uncle Merle.

And Sophia? She was his Soph. The only damn thing that he had.

She knew he hated the doe eyes and, just like a woman, that's why the hell she used them when she felt she needed them.

"I know what the hell I said, Soph," Merle said. "But—that was before I knew I was goin' out in the mornin'. You gotta sleep an' you know I gotta sleep, too."

"It won't take that long," Sophia protested. "Five minutes. Ten."

"Did you brush your teeth?" Merle asked. "Last damn thing you need is your teeth rottin' out'cha damn head. I don't believe that dentist is no more a dentist than me."

"I brushed them," Sophia said. "Just one, Merle. Just one and I won't ask for another. I promise."

"You gotta get up early when I do," Merle said. "Gotta take you down to Miss Corinne's in the mornin'. She'll be expectin' you 'fore breakfast."

"I'll get up when you tell me to," Sophia said. She dragged her finger across her chest in an "X" and changed her position on the bed. "Promise. I won't even complain."

Merle laughed to himself.

Sophia rarely complained about anything. She was a good kid. If she complained about anything, it was about all the runs that he went on. She liked the old woman who lived downstairs and the old woman was fond of Sophia. She gave her cookies and treated her just like she was her own grandchild. But Sophia would rather Merle didn't go out on runs. She'd rather he stayed home and played house with her all the time.

She understood his reasoning—he needed to go out looking for new people to see if he could find her Ma and his baby brother—but it didn't mean that she didn't hate to see him go. And Merle hated to see the little drops of water that hung in her lower lashes whenever he was leaving. Every time he saw them, they nearly choked him out for the first mile or two of his trip.

Sophia was scared he wouldn't come back, and maybe she was scared with good reason, but what she didn't know was that Merle was pretty damn afraid he wouldn't come back either.

Sophia was the first person, besides his baby brother, that had ever given Merle a reason to want to go back to something.

Merle sighed and hummed at her.

"What the fuck you waitin' on?" Merle asked. "Wastin' time. Get'cha damn book. An' I meant what I said. One chapter is all the hell we readin' tonight. You don't need to be goin' to school like some Walker tomorrow an' I gotta be on my toes."

Sophia grinned at him. She scrambled off the bed and went straight for the little box of her possessions to burrow out the chapter book that she forced him to read aloud from each night. This one was about a bunch of teenagers that had found some kind of haunted house and were trying to contact the ghosts that lived there. It wasn't really that bad, but Merle wasn't about to let Sophia know that he enjoyed their reading as much as she did.

Even if he was Uncle Merle, after all, he had a reputation to uphold.

And Sophia knew that, too.

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"Score!"

Michonne heard Andrea's voice echo through the convenience store. She might have scolded her for being so loud, but they were absolutely alone. They'd cleared the place from top to bottom and there weren't too many Walkers outside, even, to worry about for the time being.

"You better have something worthwhile this time," Michonne said. "I told you the last time that nobody but you likes pickles that much."

"You might not," Andrea responded. Her voice grew louder as she got closer. She rounded the corner of the aisle that Michonne was standing on, raking every medication and pseudo medication she could find on the shelves into a backpack that she'd load in the Jeep that Andrea had helped her get running. "But—I know how you feel about fun sized candy bars and I just hit the jackpot."

Michonne turned quickly and, sure enough, saw Andrea standing there beaming. In her hands she held four or five bags of the treats.

"How the hell did those last this long without someone snagging them?" Michonne asked.

"I don't know," Andrea said. "But—they're ours now. And you're in luck. Because I don't really even like the candy. I'd rather have the pickles."

Michonne laughed.

"Then that whole restaurant sized jar is yours," Michonne said. "What else did you find?"

Andrea bent down to put her sack and the candy on the floor so that she could put the bags inside her sack. She rummaged through the large bag, ticking off the supplies as she went.

"Couple novels," Andrea said. "Toothpaste. Hard candy. Some floss. Five toothbrushes. Socks. I don't know...everything that we could use."

"No toilet paper?" Michonne asked.

"Mmm mmm," Andrea said, humming in the negative. "Not even tissue. Cleaned out."

"I've got some headache medicine," Michonne said. "A little stomach stuff. Basically—nobody gets sick or we're both doomed." Michonne sighed. "It's time to move on. There's just nothing else here."

Andrea frowned at her.

"A couple more nights, Mich?" Andrea asked. "In our house?"

"It's not our house," Michonne said, shaking her head at Andrea. "It's just—the house we're staying in. I told you that. Don't get attached. Nothing lasts these days."

Andrea looked absolutely crushed and it made it difficult for Michonne to swallow.

Maybe there were two kinds of people in the world now. There were the movers and the stayers. From what Michonne learned from Andrea, the group that she'd been with had been a group set on staying. They wanted to find a place where they could settle down and live a long and happy life. They believed that there was somewhere that they'd call their place forever.

Andrea was a stayer. She wanted to stay in one place. She wanted to nest. She wanted somewhere to call home.

It didn't matter where they were—a barn, a shed, a house—Andrea made their space a home for however long they were there. She had a certain ability to make the place feel warm and welcoming. She could make it feel comfortable. With nothing to work with, Andrea could still work her magic. She'd actually managed to make Michonne sad to leave most of the places—and it was no easy task to make someone think they'd miss the times they had while living in the hayloft of an old barn.

Michonne was the other kind of person. She was a mover.

She'd come to accept the fact that everything in this world was temporary. It was painfully temporary. Nothing lasted.

Realistically, Michonne knew that nothing had ever lasted. Permanency was an illusion. It was a bedtime story that everyone told themselves to feel like they had something to count on. People lost jobs, relationships ended, loved ones died, and possessions rotted away. Nothing lasted in the old world and it was even worse now.

It was better to keep moving. It was better not to get attached. You just kept your eye on the horizon and you headed straight for the next place. You kept your eyes open for places you hadn't raided, supplies you hadn't gathered, and the next place you were going.

Andrea had only called Michonne on it once. She'd only asked her, once, the question that Michonne hadn't been able to answer. Michonne didn't know if she'd ever have an answer, either. But Andrea hadn't asked her the question again. She just kept moving when Michonne said to move.

 _But where does it all end?_

Andrea's argument was that, ultimately, there had to be an end. There had to be something—some place—that was simply the end of the journey. If they kept moving forward, it had to be toward something. Otherwise? They were just lost, together, and they were just wandering around the world with no purpose or reason.

Andrea needed a purpose.

Michonne wanted to believe that she didn't need anything.

She wanted to believe it, but she was starting to think that she was wrong. She was starting to think that she'd been wrong all along. She hadn't reached some higher plane where all she needed were the absolute necessities that were crucial to sustaining life. She hadn't reached a point where she could say that she didn't need comfort or security or affection. Michonne hadn't managed to do away completely with her needs. She'd simply consolidated them all.

Michonne was starting to realize that she really only needed one thing. Andrea.

As long as Andrea was there, Michonne didn't really think she needed anything else. Andrea was her everything. She was happy to wander around the world, lost and unattached to any place or time, as long as Andrea was wandering right along beside her.

Michonne didn't need to find a home because, whether it was a barn or a house or the back of a store just like this one, Andrea made everywhere she was a home.

But Andrea needed a home. She needed to nest. She was, after all, a stayer.

And even if Michonne couldn't give that to her all the time, because she didn't think this was a world that really allowed for such things like that, Michonne could give it to her for a little while. She could hold the Walkers back for just a bit and stretch the supplies for a few days here or there. She could allow Andrea the luxury of indulging her imagination for a short period of time and enjoying the comfort she found in spending several nights in the same place.

Because, in return, Andrea would give Michonne everything that she needed and a few things that she hadn't even realized she even wanted.

Packing things into her bag, Andrea looked sullen over the fact that they'd pack up soon and wander on some short distance to look for other houses or stores to search. Even though there might be a nicer house in a different neighborhood, she wasn't ready to leave the one that she'd just settled into the night before with the dream that they might find enough stuff to sustain them for weeks.

Michonne sighed and pulled a few more things from the shelf, content that there was nothing really left there of value.

"I think we've got enough for a couple of nights," Michonne said. "Maybe—we'll just stay for a couple of nights."

She glanced at Andrea out of the corner of her eye and saw the smile on the blonde's lips.

"We've got enough that—I can cook us a good dinner tonight," Andrea said. "We can eat at the table like civilized people." Michonne hummed and Andrea looked at her. "And in a couple of days, Mich? We'll move on. But just—just for a couple of nights? Let's just be home?"

Michonne nodded her head.

They could do both. They could move and they could stay. They were different kinds of people, but they could do both. They could both be happy. And, maybe, one day they'd find the magical place that Andrea dreamed of where there was an abundance of everything and they could live together forever.

But until then, they could go on as they were—moving and staying. As long as Andrea was there, Michonne was content to keep doing just that forever. She couldn't answer Andrea's question, but maybe that was mostly owing to the fact that Michonne didn't want to think about the end. She never wanted to think about the end of this.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **This story is mapped out all the way to the end. There are usually some changes (added and subtracted) chapters in every story that I plan out chapter by chapter. There have already been a few changes here. But roughly we've got about 30 chapters to go. There's a lot that's going to happen, so don't worry. There's a very good chance you'll get to see (read) everything you want to read (or at least I hope so).**

 **I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl rolled over in the bed that they were sharing. The sun wasn't up yet. Judging from the darkness in the room, it wouldn't be up for at least another hour. They would move on today—just a little bit farther following the path that they'd been following. They'd look for another house. They'd look for any signs of life.

Along the way, they'd found a few signs of life here or there, but there wasn't really any proof that Sophia had been the one to stay in a place. Someone had been there, but there was no way of really knowing who that someone had been.

Daryl didn't like the fact that he was starting to admit to himself that they'd probably never find the girl. She seemed to simply be gone.

Daryl knew that once he admitted it, it was over. Carol had already started to accept the fact that her daughter was gone. She tried to hide it from him, but he'd caught her a few times crying over it when she thought he was busy with other things and wouldn't catch her. Carol had already started to let go. Any holding on she was doing at this point was for Daryl, not for herself. When Daryl finally said that they were no longer looking for the girl—because they had no way of knowing where she was and they'd already travelled a pretty large distance by somewhat stumbling in crooked lines on their search—Carol would accept it. She would grieve for her daughter, once and for all, and she'd come to terms with the fact that the girl was gone.

Daryl didn't think it would break her, but he hated to see her hurt. He hated to take away the last scrap of hope that she might have remaining.

Daryl hated to be the one that let her down like that.

But he couldn't make Sophia magically appear.

Finding Carol in the bed with her back to him, Daryl wrapped his body around hers. He threw an arm over, threw a leg over her, and drew her backwards into him. He fit them as tightly together as their bodies allowed and he nuzzled the back of her neck, her short hair tickling his face.

He inhaled her scent and closed his eyes, trying to will himself back to sleep for another half hour or so before they'd move again.

"You know there are other ways to get my attention besides just poking me in the back with it," Carol said. "You could—just ask me."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Wasn't," he said. "Swear. Just woke up an' was tryin' to go back to sleep."

He didn't mean to yawn, but when it escaped him, he assumed it illustrated his point at least a little.

Carol pulled away from him and grudgingly he let her go. He groaned at her in protest, though, as she separated their bodies and worked her way out from under him. She rolled over, facing him, though he could barely make out anything about her in the darkness.

He felt her fingertips, though, when they trailed around his face. She was reading his expression like it was Braille. He smiled when her fingers touched his lips and he heard the breathy sound escape her of a quiet laugh.

"If you want to go back to sleep," Carol said, "you can. But—if you were asking about other things? I don't really mind."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"I don't really mind," he repeated. "That—that right there? That makes me feel real special."

"You know what I mean," Carol said. "You want me to beg? I'll beg if that's really what you want."

"No," Daryl said. "No—I don't want you to beg. I guess we got about an hour to sun up. Maybe less."

"We'll make good use of the time we've got left," Carol said. "If you want to—scoot over here?"

"I done came to you once," Daryl said. "Way I see it? It's time you come to me."

Carol didn't waste any time, and she didn't argue. Daryl opened his arms to her and rolled over onto his back, inviting her to be the one to come to him.

Maybe he'd have to disappoint her soon, but he hoped it could wait for just a little while longer.

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They had some good leads on groups in the area. There'd been a lot of people around lately. They were mostly small, fractured groups of people that were leftovers from larger groups that had started out at different points together. It was impossible to know which ones were coming from Atlanta and slowly spreading outward and which ones were headed to Atlanta in search of some kind of Promised Land that they were never going to find, but so far they'd found groups that fit both profiles.

Merle had taken every "recruiting" job he could get on for the past few months since he'd found Sophia. His hope was that he was one day going to manage to simply run into his baby brother. He figured that he'd have Sophia's mother with him and, if he didn't, he'd have a pretty good idea of where they could find her.

They'd been out after several groups. Two they'd found already massacred, clearly, by either Walkers or some other group. One group they'd brought in. Another group had tried to attack them after clearly being warned that wasn't a good idea and they'd had to deal with them.

Every time they got close to some signs of life and prepared themselves for meeting new people, Merle's stomach had a rough time dealing with his conflicting desires. He wanted to find Daryl and Carol—and possibly whoever else they might be travelling around with—because he was worried about his brother and he wanted proof he was alive. He also knew that Sophia needed her mother and he wanted to find the woman for Sophia's sake. There was a part of him, though, that almost dreaded finally locating the two of them.

When Sophia's mother was back in her life, Sophia would have all that she needed. No little girl with a good Ma was ever going to really need an Uncle Merle around that didn't know what the hell he was doing to begin with.

Still, Merle put his feelings aside and he looked for them in every face that he saw whether it belonged to the dead or the living.

"There it is," Merle said. "Right up there. The fire they said they seen. I can see the smoke from here."

Merle pointed toward the smoke and Jimmy—a man who hated these types of runs but still got sent out on them because he wasn't good for much else—hummed at him.

"They aren't real smart lettin' a fire burn like that," Jimmy said. "They'll have every group around comin' in on 'em."

"Maybe they ain't set the fire," Merle said. "Or maybe they don't give a rat's ass."

"After what we saw with that other group?" Jimmy said. "If they don't care, then maybe we need more than the six of us to go and talk to 'em."

Behind them were two other vehicles, each of them carrying two people. As they neared the area where the group was supposed to be located, they'd split up. Merle knew the area well and so did the two men driving each of the vehicles behind him. They'd surround the group, park the vehicles, and come in around them on foot. If the group didn't give them any trouble, they'd talk to them and take them back to Woodbury. If the group decided to get a little rowdy, they'd handle them.

Merle laughed to himself.

"You pissin' your pants or some shit?" Merle asked. "Scared of a lil' confrontation?"

"Scared to get killed," Jimmy said. "If that's what the hell you mean. Sorry, but I don't love to test fate every day of my life."

"Don't worry," Merle said. "You with me—an' don't no damn body kill Merle Dixon."

"You're pretty damn confident," Jimmy responded.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Got that shit right," he said.

"Arrogance gets you killed, you know that?" Jimmy said.

"Ain't arrogant if it's true," Merle said. "Besides—got a lotta shit to live for. Ain't got time to die today."

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Merle was pretty sure he could hear Jimmy's knees knocking together even as they were walking. He was the shakiest damn gun around, but he still managed to hit any and everything he aimed at. That was the only reason that the Governor didn't just put him washing dishes or sorting boxes of shit to keep him busy. He'd be scared out of his skull, but he could take care of whatever needed to be taken care of when it came down to it. Merle figured it was usually just the drive to save his own skin that kept the man reacting. The only thing they had to watch out for was the fact that Jimmy's trigger finger, although accurate, was a little itchy. More than once, he'd shot before he even took in the situation and they'd lost people that might've actually been welcomed back at Woodbury.

Somewhere off to the side, just as hidden as they were, the other men waited for Merle's signal. He'd go out first to scope out the new people. If he wanted back up, he'd get it. The group was outside of a barn that had probably been abandoned long before the dead had started walking around. It was one of those relics that dotted the countryside. Nobody had wanted it, but nobody had taken the time to tear it down either. Mother Nature was slowly breaking it down, though, and Merle imagined it offered some pretty poor coverage for the group. They were likely there for only a night or two—and it was possible that they had moved since some of their people had first spotted the fire from their lookouts.

"You prob'ly don't need your gun," Merle said, smiling to himself when he got a decent look at the group that was milling about. "Four people. All of 'em women. Don't look like much of a threat."

"Kids?" Jimmy whispered back. "Because if there's kids—you know they'll shoot you."

"No damn kids," Merle responded. "I got it."

Merle gave up his cover and walked toward the small gaggle of women with his hand and bayonet both in the air. He'd learned that the best way to approach unknown people was to try to come in peace first. There was time for violence, but it didn't have to go that way—not if they didn't give him a reason to react negatively.

If he had to, though, Merle could kill them—women or not. He wouldn't attack them first, but he'd defend himself from anyone.

"Easy, girls," Merle called out as he walked up. "Easy. I ain't here to hurt'cha. Here to help. Got a place. Safe. A town. You don't fuck with me? I got no reason to fuck with you."

Merle's presence did exactly what he thought it would. It surprised the women.

There was a scramble as they tried to get away from him, putting a few feet more distance between themselves and him, and as they looked for whatever weapons they had carelessly left a short distance away from them.

Merle let them go for their weapons. He could see them even before the women reached them and they were poorly armed. They were living their lives out here with large kitchen knives, a fire ax, and a machete. They were good weapons for Walkers, but they weren't a match for the five men they couldn't see who were waiting in the woods with loaded guns.

Merle laughed to himself. He watched his tone so as to not startle the women anymore and make anyone react violently. There were more men than there were women in Woodbury and, honestly, they wouldn't be a poor addition to the town if they were a decent enough fit. None of them were horrible to look at and the Governor would more than likely be pleased if Merle were to bring them back. A lot of people would likely be pleased if Merle were to bring the women back.

"Now that'cha feel safer," Merle said, still keeping his stance of surrender, "maybe we could have us a lil' chat? We wanna know who the hell you are an' how the hell you got here. If you ain't lookin' for trouble, might just take you to our safe place."

"We don't want trouble," one of the women called out. "But—don't get any ideas, either."

"Where'd you come from?" Merle asked, ignoring her warning.

"Different places," another of the women responded.

"You alone?" Merle asked.

"Now we are," the first woman responded.

"You weren't?" Merle asked.

"Are you alone?" The second woman asked. The two of them were clearly the speakers for their little group.

"Not no more," Merle said. "But I was. Once upon a fuckin' time. Where the hell's the rest of your people?"

"Probably the same place yours are," the first woman responded. "Dead. We were hit again about a week ago. Ten or fifteen miles from here. We lost four people. My husband was one of them."

Merle nodded his head.

"Put'cha weapons down," Merle said. "Lower 'em now an' nobody gets hurt. I promise you that. We'll give you blindfolds to wear. You can't see where the hell we goin'. You behave? Go with us peacefully? You got my word—for everythin' it's ever been worth—that'cha don't come to no harm. You don't put'cha weapons down, though, an' we gonna have to consider it a threat."

Three of the women lowered their weapons immediately. They didn't drop them to the ground, but they did let their arms hang to the side. The other woman looked at them like she'd been betrayed. She looked at the like she was confused by their refusal to take a stand. She held her weapon firmly in front of her like she was ready to attack.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Ballsy," he said. "You too damn pretty to shoot, sugar. Put'cha weapon down. Don't deprive this sorry ass world of a face like you got."

Merle started to step forward and the first woman who had spoken—the self-identified widow—step forward to meet him. She dropped her weapon and held her hands out to him.

"Don't hurt her," she said quickly. "She can't hear. She probably doesn't even know what's happening. Let me talk to her."

"Can't hear?" Merle asked.

The woman shook her head.

"Nothing," the woman said.

"Then how the hell you gonna talk to her?" Merle asked.

"She can read your lips," the woman said. "Up close. One on one."

Merle nodded his head. He looked back toward the woman they were discussing. She was watching them without even blinking. She was apparently starting to sense that there was less of a threat than she had first thought, maybe because Merle wasn't harming her friend, because she was slowly relaxing. She was slowly lowering her weapon.

She hadn't heard him, but Merle hadn't lied. It would be a shame, in a world where it seemed like women were at a shortage, to lose somebody with a face as pretty as hers. She might not be able to hear the sweet nothings that somebody might choose to whisper in her ear, but at least she'd miss a lot of the other shit too.

"You talk to her," Merle said. "Pack your shit. I'ma get my friends. Get'cha some blindfolds. We takin' your asses back to Woodbury. Think you'll be real comfortable there. All of you."


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: There's a time jump after this chapter. This chapter has us back in Woodbury.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"I wondered where you were," the governor said as Merle approached him, holding the upper part of the woman's arm in his hand. Merle was well aware that it probably looked like he was manhandling her, but he was doing it of her own request.

Sadie was her name. Merle had gotten that much from her. And he could say one thing about her—she had balls. She was already down one sense and she'd allowed Merle to take another from her in exchange for only the promise that he wouldn't take his hand from around the top of her arm until the blindfold could come off.

"We got slowed down," Merle said. "She didn't keep up as quick as the rest."

"I've already talked to them," the governor said.

Merle stared hard at the man trying to read what that might mean. Merle didn't ask questions—at least not with his mouth—but he knew that sometimes talking meant that someone passed what was something of an entrance exam and were paraded down the main street to the clinic so that everyone could see they were being welcomed to Woodbury. Sometimes, however, talking meant that they went out behind the buildings. Those people never became part of Woodbury. They never became part of anything.

Merle had been asked to take care of them before. And he never asked, really, what made one person go one way when another went the other.

The governor laughed to himself. Clearly he understood the question that Merle didn't ask.

"They're all at the clinic," the governor said. "Getting checked out. A good meal and a good night's rest and they should all be doing well tomorrow. I'll take her over to be with her friends."

"Her name's Sadie," Merle said. "And if it's all the same to you? I'll take her over there myself."

The governor stared at him, and then he smiled. He nodded his head.

"If it's that important to you," the governor offered. "But—you've never really taken that much of an interest before, Merle."

"Different," Merle said. "She can't hear. Don't even know what's goin' on right now. Can't see neither with the blindfold on. I promised her I wouldn't stop holding her arm until I got her where she could take it off."

The governor nodded.

"Fine," he said. "They'll get them set up with rooms. Whatever they need. What about your brother? His wife?"

Merle shook his head.

"Ain't been no sign of 'em," Merle said.

"Your niece is adjusting well," the governor said.

Merle nodded his head.

"Soph's a good kid," Merle said. "Strong. Dixon through an' through."

"You still want to be on all the recruitment runs?" The governor asked. "You still believe your brother's out there?"

"Like I said," Merle answered. "Dixons—they don't kill easy. Daryl's out there. I'll find him."

The governor nodded and reached his hand out to touch Sadie's face. He disguised the movement as brushing some mud or dirt off her cheek, but Merle saw it for what it was. He just wanted the chance to touch her—and he had a perfect excuse.

Sadie recoiled almost violently from the act and Merle squeezed her arm and held tight to her. She stopped fighting against him, but he'd have had to be blindfolded to not see that her breathing had changed.

"She don't wanna be touched," Merle said. "Ain't fair—when she can't even hear it comin'."

"My apologies," the governor said. "You'll be sure to tell her? You can take the blindfold off as soon as you're in the clinic and she's checked for bites."

Merle nodded.

"I know the drill," Merle said.

He tugged at Sadie's arm and the woman came with him as willingly as she'd come with him every step of the journey so far. He walked slowly. She was going to stumble over the road because he couldn't tell her when to step up and when to lift her feet higher. The only thing he could do was brace himself to catch her when she started to go down and keep her from hitting her knees.

She couldn't see Woodbury, after all, until the governor's doctor and nurse had checked her out and declared her fit to stay there. Otherwise there was always a risk that she'd somehow escape and come back to do them harm. If something like that happened? Merle would be sent out to take her down.

He didn't want to do that. So he simply walked slowly, clinging tight to her arm, so that he was ready to heave her back to her feet if she should stumble.

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"Merle!" Sophia yelped, practically throwing herself at him as soon as the old neighbor woman opened her door. Holding his bayonet arm out to the side, Merle stooped down enough to accept Sophia's hug and once her arms were wrapped tight around his neck, he lifted her up.

"Thanks for watchin' her," Merle said.

Corinne, the elderly neighbor, smiled at him.

"She's never any trouble," the old woman said.

She reached behind her door and came out with a backpack—Sophia's purple backpack—that she offered to Merle. Sophia turned enough from where she was holding onto Merle's neck to reach out and take the bag.

"She's done her homework," Corinne said.

"Every last bit," Sophia assured Merle.

Merle laughed to himself. He'd never been one for school or studying, but he figured that Sophia's Ma—whenever she might come back—would be hoping that the girl hadn't fallen too far behind, especially once she found out that Woodbury had schools to teach the kids just about anything they'd need to know like math and reading.

"Smart like that," Merle said. "Woulda kept me hours doin' it."

"And there are some books in there," Corinne said. "We stopped by the library after I got her from school. Return them when you want."

Merle nodded his thanks to the old woman and bounced Sophia so that she could thank the lady for watching her. As soon as the door was closed, Merle lowered Sophia to the ground so that she could find her two feet again.

"Did you find anybody today, Merle?" Sophia asked.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Merle said.

He only ever told Sophia about the people that they brought back to Woodbury—the new people that she'd see here or there in the streets. He didn't tell her about the people that would never be welcomed to stay or the ones that were never even brought back for questioning. He didn't figure a kid her size had any business knowing about the unpleasant affairs of Woodbury—at least not if there wasn't a good reason to tell her. Besides, the less she knew, the better off she was. There was no chance of her letting it slip that she knew something the governor might not like that she knew.

"Found four women," Merle said.

"Just women?" Sophia asked.

"Just women," Merle said.

"One of the women wasn't my Mama?" Sophia asked.

Merle frowned and shook his head.

"Sorry, Soph," Merle said. "These was just four women from a bigger group. They was all that was left. Walkers eat the rest of their group."

Sophia shuddered and Merle regretted having told her that. He followed her up the stairs toward their apartment.

"You don't gotta worry 'bout'cha Ma, Soph," Merle offered, hoping to soothe things over a little. "Daryl's got her. She's alright. Promise you that. My lil' brother ain't gonna let no harm come to her."

"When are you going to find her?" Sophia asked. "And Daryl?"

"Don't know that shit no more today than I knowed it yesterday," Merle responded. "I'ma just keep lookin'. I'll find 'em, though."

"And until then," Sophia said, "you'll keep finding people like the four women?"

"That's the idea," Merle responded.

"Are they nice?" Sophia asked. "The women you found?"

"Tired," Merle said. "Hungry. But I suppose they nice enough. You'll prob'ly see 'em tomorrow. They's one of 'em can't hear nothin'."

"Nothing?" Sophia asked.

"Not a thing," Merle said.

"Can she talk?" Sophia asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"She does alright," Merle said. "She can see you talkin' and follow along."

"How?" Sophia asked.

"With her eyes, I reckon, Soph," Merle said. "Why the hell you ask me some shit like that? You think I know?"

"Can I ask her?" Sophia asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"I reckon you can," Merle said. "But not tonight. Miss Corinne give you somethin' to eat?"

"No," Sophia said. "I mean—I had lunch, but I didn't have dinner. They're having spaghetti tonight, Merle. The good kind."

Merle laughed to himself and opened the door to their apartment, pushing Sophia inside in front of him.

"Let's leave your books here," Merle said. "We'll go get somethin' to eat. I could eat a fuckin' rhinoceros."

Sophia laughed.

"That could be pretty tough, Merle," Sophia said.

"Yeah—well, so can I. Come on...when we get back you can show me your stories," Merle said.

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"Like this...OK? You see?" Sadie asked.

She repeated the gesture that she'd made with her hand and Sophia copied it carefully. Sophia repeated the gesture two more times and then waved to get Sadie's attention. As soon as she had it, she repeated the gesture and Sadie let out the delighted squeal that she used every time Sophia mastered another sign and clapped her hands together.

"Good!" Sadie declared, signing as she spoke to the girl. "So good! What about—can you ask me...where I live?"

Sophia nodded her head enthusiastically and licked her bottom lip while she thought about it a moment. Apparently settling on the movements she needed to make, Sophia moved her hands and Sadie applauded her efforts once more.

Merle had been watching them for at least ten minutes. Sadie had been doing this with Sophia since she'd gotten there almost a week before.

Merle didn't know if it was considered rude or not, mostly because he wasn't one to study too much on what was socially acceptable, but Sophia had asked Sadie immediately upon meeting her how it was that she could understand what someone was saying without them speaking to her. Sadie had given the girl a "lesson" of sorts on reading lips and then Sophia had been so thrilled with the idea that she'd plugged her ears up with cotton that night and made Merle talk to her while she repeated what he said and did her best not to cheat by listening to his muffled words.

So when Sadie told Sophia that she had a super-secret language that she understood even better than the one that Sophia was desperately trying to learn for herself, Sophia had begged Merle to let the woman teach her.

Sadie had promised that she didn't mind, either, taking a little time with the girl after her lessons were done. So Merle found them this way, every day, after Sophia finished at school.

And Merle didn't mind it either because it gave him a chance to at least get a good look at the woman and to admire the smile that she almost always seemed to be wearing.

When Merle gave up his cover and Sophia finally saw him, she waved enthusiastically at him and called out to him. Sadie looked over her shoulder and smiled at Merle as he approached. Then she turned around and signed something to Sophia while she mumbled the words. Sophia watched her with her brow furrowed and Sadie apparently repeated what she'd said. Sophia grinned when she understood it and stood up, darting away without a word to anyone. It was only then that Sadie stood up from the bench they'd been sitting on and approached Merle.

"What'd you do with Soph?" Merle asked, laughing to himself.

"She's going to get ice cream," Sadie said. "For us."

"For you an' me?" Merle asked.

"All of us," Sadie said. "They made some. Today. I helped. You aren't allergic to strawberries?"

"No," Merle said. "Not that I know of. Listen—if she's botherin' you? You just tell me."

Sadie shook her head.

"Oh no," she said. "She doesn't bother me. I didn't think I would see children again. Not after—not after I lost mine." She shrugged her shoulders. "I like it. I like—spending time with her."

Merle's stomach churned.

"You lost yours, huh?" Merle asked.

Sadie nodded. She held her hand up, fingers spread out, and it took Merle a moment to figure out that she was trying to show him all of her fingers. She wiggled them at him.

"All of them," Sadie said.

"All what?" Merle asked. "Children?"

Sadie nodded.

"You had five kids?" Merle asked.

Sadie laughed to herself and nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm used to that. Everyone—they said—you have five kids?"

Merle laughed at the expression she made to go along with the statement.

"I'm sorry," Merle said.

"Me too," Sadie said, her smile fading a little.

"You wanted that many?" Merle asked.

"More," Sadie said. She shrugged her shoulders. "I like children."

Merle licked his lips. He wished he could do something to take back the conversation. He liked knowing a little bit about the woman—more than the pieces she'd given him when he'd questioned her before bringing her to Woodbury—but he didn't like the way her smile wasn't as sincere as it had been before. She wasn't bawling her eyes out, but it was clear she was sad about losing her kids. She'd probably been a good Ma to all of them. He didn't know how to fix the sadness, though. In general, Merle didn't know what you really said to a woman like that.

Merle had never talked to somebody quite like Sadie.

"You do alright with shootin'," Merle said, surprising himself that he'd chosen that particular compliment to lead with when he'd been searching for something to say to bring the smile back to Sadie's face. He could've kicked himself in the nuts. He normally felt like he did OK talking to women. He'd certainly had his fair share of women before. But they were different and the way he talked to them was different. He didn't feel quite like he wanted to say the same things to Sadie that he said to the women he'd been trying to pick up before. He wanted to say different things to her. The problem was that, apparently, his brain was growing rusty from the lack of women in his presence and he was forgetting how to say anything. Sadie looked at him confused. She had every right to look at him that way. "Fuckin' sorry," Merle said. "I meant—yesterday. You was up on the wall."

Sadie nodded. She smiled then and nodded a little more enthusiastically. She gestured toward the wall.

"Shooting! The Dead!" She said.

Merle nodded.

"You done good," Merle said. "Shootin' 'em. I seen you hittin' what'cha was aimin' at. You ain't so bad at it. I mean—you—with your ears? Don't slow you down. You better'n I expected."

Sadie made a face at him, but her smile didn't fade.

"My ears don't have anything to do with my shooting," Sadie said.

Merle could've kicked himself in the nuts again. He wasn't sure what the hell was happening, but he'd lost it. Everything he'd ever had when it came to dealing with women, he'd lost it.

"Fuckin' hell," Merle grumbled.

Sadie laughed.

"I'm better at shooting than you expected," Sadie said. Merle looked at her. He was afraid to speak, so he simply stared at her. She liked silence. Maybe she'd appreciate it over his idiotic ass comments. Sadie shrugged her shoulders and pointed at him. "And you—you're worse at flirting than I expected."

Merle couldn't help but laugh to himself.

"I don't know what the hell's wrong with me," Merle admitted. "I'm usually a lot better'n this. Gimme another damn try. It's been all this—hangin' out with Soph ever' damn day."

Sadie nodded her head.

"I don't mind," she said. "And—I'd like to give you another try. I'd love to have you for dinner."

Merle smirked at her.

"An' I wouldn't mind havin' you for dessert," Merle growled.

Immediately he heard it when it came out and he wondered if she'd run in the other direction. Maybe he'd get lucky and she'd miss it altogether. Maybe she'd think he literally meant that as an invitation for dessert.

The smile on her face, though, changed to say that she understood him entirely and, surprisingly enough, she wasn't offended.

"Better," she said. "Much better. But—dinner first. You and Sophia." She shrugged her shoulders. "Then—who knows?"


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: There's a time jump here.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Carol wasn't perfect, but Daryl had never believed that this world really had perfection to offer. Still, she was as close to perfect as Daryl thought he'd ever seen in a human being.

Daryl was often amazed at how effortlessly Carol seemed to do everything. She might not be perfect at everything she did, but she was close enough to scare the hell out of perfection itself.

Carol said she wanted to stick close to Daryl, so she never left his side. Wherever he went, Carol was with him. She didn't want to be left at any camp that they might set for themselves and Daryl honored her wishes. Along the way, Carol had learned to kill Walkers as though they were little more than pests that needed to be dealt with. She'd learned to shoot and hit most of what she aimed for. She'd learned to set traps and snares and more than once she'd caught more for their supper than Daryl had. She'd learned to track, as well, though that was one area where she still preferred to rely on Daryl rather than taking the lead for herself.

Carol could set up their camp, break it down, skin whatever they had for supper, and cook so that just about everything tasted good enough for Daryl to ask if he might finish off anything she left behind on her plate.

Carol wanted to learn everything and she was a quick study at anything she tried to learn. She amazed Daryl with how quickly she picked things up and how patient she could be while she was waiting for him to figure out the best way to teach her new things.

She was teaching Daryl new things too.

For the first time in his life, Daryl learned how to keep his temper even when he was frustrated with the world because a harsh word or an unnecessarily loud volume made Carol flinch and he never wanted her to flinch because of something he'd done. He learned that the touch of someone else could be the most wonderful feeling in the world. He also learned that he had the power, with his own touch, to do things that seemed to bring Carol to life in a way that belonged only to him.

Carol was teaching Daryl what it felt like to care so much for someone else that he would have rather died himself than let anything happen to her.

She terrified him and fascinated him at the same time.

And Daryl wanted to give Carol the world, but he couldn't even give her the one thing that she wanted most.

Carol sat in front of the fireplace at the house they were staying in and tended the fire that she'd cooked supper over so that it wouldn't burn out. It was chilly in the house, but Daryl doubted they'd freeze to death if the fire went out. Still, Carol wasn't going to take the chance. She sat, tending the fire, and stared at the flickering flames like they held some kind of secret to life.

Daryl sat on the mattress that he'd moved to the living room floor and studied the map he'd found, carefully marking off the most recent steps of their travels.

"There's still this whole area here," Daryl mumbled to himself more than anything. "We ain't covered it. Been all around it, but we ain't covered it. Looks like we avoided even steppin' foot in it, to be honest."

"And Sophia didn't either," Carol said.

Daryl looked up from the map and stared at her. His stomach caught.

It was the first time in a very long while that she'd said anything to him about his plans. Usually she just went along with him. She never said a word about where they were going or what they were doing. She'd stopped, a good while ago, even bringing up the fact that they were still looking for her daughter.

"We don't know that," Daryl said.

He couldn't even believe his words anymore and he saw a soft smile on Carol's lips that told him that she didn't believe him either.

"Daryl—I think it's time to admit that Sophia's gone," Carol said.

Daryl's stomach twisted around itself like some invisible hand was wringing it out like a cloth.

"You don't even look..." Daryl said, but he couldn't finish.

"Sad?" Carol asked, raising her eyebrows at him. "Hurt?"

Daryl nodded his head.

"I'm sad," Carol said. "I'm very sad. And—there's an ache in my chest that, honestly? I can hardly breathe sometimes. It wakes me up at night. I'm looking for her—checking for her. Just like I did when she was a baby. And it hits me, all over again, that she's just gone. But—Daryl? I've known it for a long time. I've been doing my mourning. I'm not happy about it, but I've made my peace with it. She's in a better place. She's—happy. And she's safe. Now? She's not hungry or scared or sad. She's just—in a better place."

Daryl shook his head at her.

"She might still be out there..." he said.

"Are you saying that for me, Daryl?" Carol asked. "Or are you saying that for you?"

Daryl swallowed.

"I just don't want..." Daryl said, but he stopped again. He was used to talking to Carol. They had long and winding conversations—the longest he'd ever had in his life. They filled their evenings with conversation. Carol actually listened to what he said and she seemed interested in all of it. Daryl felt like he'd said more to Carol in the past few months than he'd said in his entire life before meeting her. But, suddenly, all his words were getting jammed up in his throat again, like they used to do, despite the fact that his mind was running a thousand miles an hour with all the ideas he could possibly have running into each other.

But Carol was patient with him. She was always patient.

"What don't you want, Daryl?" Carol urged gently.

"Don't want you to give up," Daryl managed. He folded the map messily and put it to the side. There was no need searching there for something that he wouldn't find on the paper.

"On Sophia?" Carol asked. "I could never entirely give up on Sophia. She's my baby. She always will be, even if I can't see her anymore. But—I had to give up on finding her, Daryl. It was too much to spend every day thinking that today might be the day we find her and then going to bed with that kind of disappointment. That's too much to carry around. It was weighing me down. I couldn't keep up carrying something like that."

"I'd help you carry it," Daryl said.

"And you have," Carol said. "And you do. But I'm not giving up, Daryl. Not on—on life? I'm not giving up on that. Maybe I would have, once upon a time, but I'm not that person anymore. Before? I would have thought that I couldn't survive. Now? I'm surviving."

"You more set to survive than even I am," Daryl said.

Carol laughed to herself.

"I wouldn't go that far," Carol said.

"I would," Daryl said. "Bein' honest? If it weren't for you? I can't say I'da kept goin' this long."

"And I know that I wouldn't have kept going this long without you," Carol said. "But—I think it's time for us to start talking about what's really happening. It's time to start talking about—what's really in front of us."

Daryl's stomach had untangled itself a little from the tight feeling that it had before, but now it somewhat tightened again to remind him that it wasn't entirely comfortable with everything that was going on. Carol wasn't giving up. She was there. She was staying in the world and she had no intention of trying to leave it, even if she would still need time to mourn her daughter.

But he didn't know what might be going on in her mind, and Carol was just as capable as he was of surviving this world—even if she ever had to go it alone by choice or by chance.

"What's in front of us?" Daryl asked. "You—leavin'?"

Carol made a sound almost like a laugh that she cut off at the exact moment that it attempted to escape her body. She abandoned tending her fire and crawled across the floor until she reached the mattress. Then she crawled across the mattress to Daryl and planted a soft kiss on his lips that surprised him a little.

She leaned her face next to his ear and Daryl shivered when her breath blew against him.

"I'm never leaving you," Carol said. "I've told you that before. I'll tell you again—every day if I have to. I will never leave you. Not by choice."

Daryl's stomach let go of its tightness then and he felt like his entire body flooded with a relaxing warmth.

"What's in front, then?" Daryl asked, moving to catch Carol and pull her close to him. She pulled away from him to gain enough freedom to change her position slightly and then she settled, willingly, next to him to rest somewhat reclined against him.

"The future, Daryl," Carol said. "The future is ahead of us." She laughed to herself. "If I'm planning on surviving, and you're planning on surviving, then we've got to talk about that."

"What about it?" Daryl asked.

"What do you want it to be?" Carol asked. "What—kind of future do you want?"

"Shit," Daryl said. "I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that before."

"I'm asking you," Carol said.

"What do you want?" Daryl asked.

"I asked you first," Carol said with a laugh.

"I don't know," Daryl admitted. "I'd have to think about it."

"Think about it, then," Carol said. "We've got plenty of time."

Daryl thought about it for a second, but a second wasn't going to be long enough to answer a question like what he wanted the future to look like. Still, he had some ideas.

"I guess—only thing I know for sure right now is...I want you in it," Daryl said.

"You've got that," Carol said. "I can promise you that. You've got that."

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Michonne felt desperate. There was no other word for it. She leaned against the wall and gave into, for just a moment, the tears that she felt choking her when she looked at the pathetic contents of the duffle bag.

She was trying to save a life with aspirin, bottled water, and prayer. And, for right now, prayer was the only thing she had in abundance.

Michonne hadn't prayed so hard or so often in a long time.

But the life she was trying to save had become, to her, the most precious life that there was. The life she was trying to save mattered more to her than her own because, if that life was lost, Michonne didn't really feel that her own was worth living any longer.

She'd once relished being alone in this world for the very reason that she didn't want to lose anyone else. Now she still didn't want to lose anyone, but she no longer relished the taste of freedom and solitude.

She loved Andrea. She wanted her. She needed her.

She wasn't prepared to lose her.

But the clinics were picked clean. The stores were picked clean. Michonne was breaking windows and rummaging through bathroom cabinets and car glove boxes for what little bit of supplies she was finding now.

She had left Andrea as safe as she could, locked in a meat locker, to go out looking for supplies. The fever would burn Andrea out before long if Michonne couldn't get it under control. It wasn't getting any better. It was getting worse.

They needed to move on and Michonne didn't know how far they'd have to go to get what Andrea needed. She didn't know how picked over the world around them was. She didn't know if the next town would offer anything or if they'd just get there to be disappointed.

She didn't even know how to save Andrea's life if she had everything in front of her that she dreamed she might need.

Michonne didn't even know how she'd get Andrea to wherever they were going since the woman's strength couldn't hold out very long, even if she was trying to be stoic about it all.

But Michonne had already decided that she'd walk all the way to hell if she had to, carrying Andrea every step of the way, if that's what it took to save her life.

Michonne wasn't going to lose her. She wasn't prepared to lose her. She couldn't.

If she lost Andrea, Michonne was sure that she'd lose herself too. And, honestly, she was almost certain that now she'd welcome the sweet release of death over living in this world without Andrea.

That wasn't a life that she wanted.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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The sight of a helicopter, these days, would normally have been enough to send Michonne running in the opposite direction. People weren't to be trusted and it was certainly a person who was flying a helicopter.

Of course, the helicopter was in the process of crashing, so there was a very good chance that whoever was driving it wouldn't survive the impact, and all that Michonne could think about was the possibility that the helicopter might have something on board that would help her keep Andrea alive.

Driven by the probably ridiculous dream that there would be antibiotics on this unexpected crashing helicopter, Michonne had practically sniffed out its crashing point. As soon as they found it, though, the propellers not entirely stopped in their spinning, it became clear that they weren't the only ones who saw the machine go down.

Michonne crouched down with Andrea beside her, the blonde wobbling on her feet as she pretended not to be as sick as she was, and watched as the truck came roaring up almost between them and the helicopter.

Michonne watched as several men spilled out of the vehicle. One of them walked over to the helicopter, looking around him as he went, and did away with those who had been on board the aircraft. Michonne's stomach tightened. She could only hope that they were dead from the impact because, if they weren't, then this was clearly a man who had no problem killing.

"Check it," he said to those around him. "See what's on board. Check the area. See if there are any survivors."

Michonne prayed that Andrea wouldn't go into one of her coughing fits any time soon. Crouched down in the brush, she was suddenly very sorry they'd come close to the wreckage. Something made her feel off about the group that had just arrived and she feared that if they found survivors, they would simply be rid of them, maybe in an interest to keep the contents of the helicopter.

As the men started walking around, their boots crunching in the brush around them, the Walker pets that Michonne had tied some feet away from them started to stir. Their chains rattled as they moved about, growling. The sounds they produced caught the attention of the man closest to them and Michonne crawled across the ground and raised up quickly enough to remove the heads of the Walker pets with one quick sweep of her katana. As their bodies dropped, she crouched down and returned to her spot beside Andrea.

The man she'd been watching seemed to lose interest in them. He turned and started off in another direction, still sweeping the area with his eyes in the search of survivors.

When Michonne heard boots crunching in the leaves again, this time from behind them, she reached for her katana again.

But she knew it was too late before she even made the move. And when he spoke, she nearly went lightheaded at the thought that they'd been caught.

"Hold on there," he said. "I promise. Mine's bigger'n yours. Just keep your hands where I can see 'em and turn around—nice an' slow."

Michonne put her hands up and Andrea did her best to do the same, though she had to drop her hand once in the act of turning to keep herself upright.

The man standing over them was quite large, made only larger in appearance by their position, and in his hand he held a gun that was pointed at them. Where the other hand should've been, there was a bayonet.

"Well shit!" He drew out. "Blondie! You look like shit..."

Andrea, who was clearly the person to whom he was speaking, dropped immediately to the ground in a faint and Michonne forgot the fact that she was supposed to remain with her hands in the air. She didn't care, at that moment, that the man had a gun pointed at her. If Andrea didn't wake up, she wouldn't care if he shot her.

"Andrea," Michonne cried out. "Andrea...Andrea...come on. You have to wake up...Andrea."

"What the hell is wrong with her?" The man asked.

"Who are you?" Michonne asked.

"Merle," the man responded. "Merle Dixon. I know her."

"It's clear she doesn't want to know you," Michonne said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"She prob'ly figures I'm dead," Merle said. "Might figure she's on her way to meet her maker. Looks like she's on her way to meet her maker."

Michonne gathered Andrea up in her arms. Andrea's eyes fluttered and she made some noise, her best attempt at producing Michonne's name, but then she closed her eyes again.

"Please," Michonne begged. She didn't want to be reduced to sitting in the mud begging this man, but desperate times called for desperate measures. "Please—either kill us both or...save her."

"You just don't go for that sword," Merle said. "And ain't nobody killin' nobody."

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"Listen here, she-devil," Merle hissed at Michonne, "you just back the fuck up yourself. I'm gonna talk to Andrea."

"Don't you touch her!" Michonne spat at him, running at him again so Merle pushed her off once more.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Holy shit we got us a wild one here," he mused. "Andrea an' me? We go way back. Way back. Who the hell you think it is gettin' her veins pumped full of the best meds we got? Gettin' both of you fuckin' treated like royalty while they savin' her damn life? Ole Merle here—that's who the hell it is."

"Why?" Michonne asked. "What do you want?"

Merle laughed to himself. He shook his head at her.

"You actin' like I'm makin' some damn demands of you," Merle said. "If I'da left you in the fuckin' mud where I found you? Woulda just been you—sittin' there on your ass in the damn mud. Cryin' your fuckin' eyes out as she come back an' tore ya damn throat out. I ain't makin' no demands. Saved her life. Yours too, more'n likely. Only damn reason I'm here is to talk to her. We go way fuckin' back. An' I had somebody was the only person meant a damn thing to me at the time. If anybody knows what the hell happened to him? It's Andrea. So I'ma talk to her if I gotta tie your ass to a chair to do it."

Michonne had met Merle at the door and had very nearly run him down the hallway. He had no desire to hurt the woman, but she seemed determined to fight him at every turn and she was making it difficult for him to even pretend that he liked her. He was starting to think they'd have been better off to just take Andrea and put Michonne out of her misery.

Merle pushed Michonne back into the hospital room that she was guarding. He crossed the room, Michonne scurrying after him like a dog willing to bite at his ankles if he should step somewhere she didn't like, and approached the bed where Andrea was lying.

She'd been coming out of the fever for almost two days now. Michonne was sleeping in a chair in the room and they were doing everything they could to save Andrea. It had been Merle's personal request that they do everything possible to keep the blonde from dying. When he approached her, she turned her head in his direction and opened her eyes.

Merle smiled at her in spite of himself.

He'd always liked Andrea—even if he'd never been much good at expressing such things.

"You still look like shit, Blondie," Merle said. "But at least you don't look set to die in the next ten minutes."

"It's OK, Mich," Andrea said softly.

"Go get you a snack," Merle said. "Man at the door. He'll get'cha a damn snack. Go with him."

Michonne practically rooted her way between Merle and Andrea. Andrea offered Michonne a smile.

"It's OK, Mich," she repeated.

Michonne put both of her hands on Andrea's face and leaned her own face close to Andrea's.

"I'll be right outside," Michonne said. "If you need me."

"She ain't gonna need you, she-devil," Merle said. "Get the hell outta here. Give us a minute to talk."

Michonne gave him the evil-eye, but she left them. Merle didn't figure that she'd go far, but he really didn't care if she overheard their conversation or not. He wasn't under any impression that Andrea wasn't going to share it with her as soon as he left.

Andrea raised up the hand with the IV cord in it.

"What is it?" Andrea asked.

"Good shit," Merle said. "Best antibiotics we got. Ever' damn thing you got's infected. But you comin' outta it. My—Sadie keeps comin' down checkin' on you while I'm workin'."

"Why are you being nice to me?" Andrea asked.

Merle swallowed.

"Was always nice to you. Didn't never hit you. Spit on you. None a' that shit," Merle said.

"You cussed me," Andrea said. "Called me names."

Merle laughed to himself.

"Dixon charm," he offered. "Speakin' of—my lil' brother. You know where he is?"

Andrea shook her head.

"Not for a while," Andrea said.

"He dead?" Merle asked.

"He wasn't the last time I saw him," Andrea said. "We were—on a farm."

"How'd you get on a farm?" Merle asked.

"We had to leave the rock quarry," Andrea said. "We got overrun. They went back to the city to get you. That night? We got overrun. We lost a lot of people. Amy—we lost her too."

Merle swallowed.

"Your—your kid sister?" Merle asked.

Andrea nodded her head. Merle thought he saw tears welling up in her eyes. He swallowed again.

"Sorry to hear it," Merle said. "She was—she was a fine kid."

"Thanks," Andrea said, a hint of a smile turning up the corners of her lips.

"You left then?" Merle asked.

"It wasn't safe," Andrea said. "We went to the CDC. In Atlanta. But—it blew up. We lost Jacqui there. Then—on the highway—we lost Sophia."

Merle's stomach twisted.

He couldn't tell Andrea about Sophia. He'd thought about it all night. He'd paced the streets of Woodbury after curfew, pretending to be on watch, while he'd turned the possibility over in his mind. He couldn't tell Andrea about Sophia.

Andrea would know the truth about Sophia's parents. Andrea would know that Merle was, truthfully, no relation to Sophia.

Andrea would know that Merle wasn't fit to raise a child.

She would, more than likely, try to take the girl and Merle wasn't ready for that. He'd come in there planning to tell her about finding Sophia—really he had—but now he found that he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"The little girl," Merle said, hoping that Andrea didn't hear the choke in his voice or find it out of the ordinary. If she did, she didn't call attention to it. She nodded her head.

"Carl got shot. We ended up on this farm where—we stayed on the farm for a while," Andrea said. She closed her eyes to Merle a moment and he worried that story time might be taking a bit more out of the woman than she had to offer right away. She didn't open her eyes to him, but she continued speaking. "We were there until it got overrun with Walkers. It was crazy. Chaotic. I got left behind. Michonne found me. She saved me."

Merle laughed to himself.

"Left behind, huh?" Merle asked.

Andrea opened her eyes to him.

"I don't know if everyone got off the farm," Andrea said. "The last I saw of those who did was—their taillights. I had to run to save myself. I ran until—I ran into Michonne."

"Good ole Officer Friendly," Merle mused. "Cut you loose sure as he cut me loose. Sophia too." Merle caught himself. "So it sounds," he added quickly.

If Andrea noticed it, she didn't say anything. Merle was starting to think, though, that the infection she wasn't clear from and the medication might be somewhat clouding her mind. He was thankful for that at the moment.

"It was an accident," Andrea said. "Everyone was trying to survive."

"You don't gotta explain it to me," Merle said. "You feel however you want about it. My brother? He—get off the farm?"

Andrea shrugged.

"I don't know," Andrea said. "Honestly—I don't know. I saw him when we were trying to fight back the Walkers. But then I—I got separated. I tried to help Carol. The Walkers were after her and I tried to help her. I think I saved her. I hope I did. I had to fight the Walkers off and they left me behind. I don't know who made it and who didn't."

Merle believed her. There wasn't anything in her features giving away that she was lying and Merle was pretty good at sniffing out a lie—that's why he'd become so important to the Governor.

Andrea was still too sick and far too tired, as well, to lie.

Merle nodded at her.

"It's OK," Merle said. "I was just—hopin' you'd know if he was alive. Know where he was. If he—was still with the group. If he was alone or had somebody with him."

"I don't know," Andrea said. "I'm sorry. But—he really stepped up. After—after you were gone? They went back to look for you..."

Merle shook his head at her.

"Don't try to make me feel better, Andrea," Merle said. "You know, deep down in ya gut, that it wouldn't make you feel no better if they told you that they come back lookin' for you a couple damn days later. After you already run—doin' what the hell you had to do to save yourself. I lost my damn hand. Half my fuckin' arm. Hearin' Officer Friendly come back to look for me later? Don't do shit for me neither."

"I'm sorry," Andrea offered quietly. "You—you didn't deserve that."

Merle hummed at her. He appreciated the words, honestly, more than he imagined he might.

"Bein' sorry don't do nothin' for me," Merle said. "An' it won't do nothin' for you but make you feel more like shit."

"Daryl was really important to the group," Andrea said. "He really stepped up. He was looking for Sophia almost every day. He was—I considered him a friend. He was—he's a really good guy. You should be proud of him."

Merle laughed to himself. He nodded his head.

"Always have been," Merle said. "He's always been—been a real good guy. Better'n me." Andrea frowned at him and opened her mouth like she might contradict him, but she didn't. "Get some rest," Merle said. "You got another round of antibiotics comin' an' then they gonna show you two to an apartment. When you're on your feet again—you'll get a good look at Woodbury. See all we got to offer. Until then? Just—get some rest."


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: The good news is that we're not too far off from everyone being in the same place, but that's all I'm going to say about that.**

 **Here's another chapter! I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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If there was one thing about Sadie that Merle could say was true, it was that she wore her feelings on her face. He never really had to puzzle too hard about what she was feeling. She didn't try to hide it, even if she could. She wore it all right out there for him to see.

And he could see that she was sore about something. Her silence over dinner might not have given it away, since the woman preferred silence over trying to keep up with too much chatter, but her expression certainly gave it away.

"Soph," Merle said, seeing that the girl was as done with her meal as she had any intention of being, "how about you go on in your room? Do your homework?"

"I was hoping we could play cards," Sophia ventured.

"And I'm thinkin' you gotta get your lessons," Merle said. "You wanna be smart, don't'cha? Like Sadie. Don't wanna be a dumbass like ya Uncle Merle. Go on in there. Get'cha homework. Maybe we'll play somethin' 'fore you go to bed."

Sophia somewhat reluctantly left the table only after she'd tapped Sadie on the shoulder and gestured her thanks to the woman for the meal that she'd prepared. Sadie smiled at her and nodded, dismissing Sophia to her room.

Maybe they'd moved quickly, but there seemed to be little other way to do things these days. Sadie and Merle got along about as good as any two adults could who had no shared history. They hadn't had more than a couple of shared meals together before Sadie decided to leave her spot in one of the "bunked" apartments and Merle had relinquished his too-small apartment for the two of them to join together in one of the "family" apartments that offered more space.

Sophia had her own room and, when they needed it, Sadie and Merle enjoyed a little privacy of their own as well.

From the look on Sadie's face, they weren't going to be needing privacy for a while.

Merle waved his hand to catch Sadie's attention and she looked at him. She was just one superpower away from shooting laser beams at him from out of her eyes.

"The fuck did I do?" Merle asked. "I ain't done nothin', have I?"

"Have you?" Sadie asked.

"That ain't fair," Merle said, pointing his finger at Sadie. "I asked you first. The fuck did I do that's got you so damn sore?"

Sadie rested her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table, but she didn't take her eyes off of Merle.

"I went down," Sadie said. "Like you asked me to. To make sure that—your friend—was still alive."

Merle nodded his head. He'd asked Sadie to check on Andrea in case the woman needed anything while he'd been running some errands for the Governor.

"Thank you for that," Merle said, not sure if she might be sour that he'd forgotten to thank her for her efforts.

Sadie raised her eyebrows at Merle. She changed her position again to sit back in her chair, her arms crossed across her chest.

"She's very pretty," Sadie said.

Merle shrugged his shoulders.

"So?" He asked.

Sadie sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes at Merle.

"Is that why you care about her?" Sadie asked.

"Because she's pretty?" Merle asked. Sadie nodded her head. "Fuck—I told you. I fuckin' knowed her ass back when all this shit started. She was damn near one of the first livin' people I laid eyes on once the damn dead started walkin'. Told your ass that."

"Do you—have feelings for her?" Sadie asked. "Did you? Is that why?"

It struck Merle, all at once, what Sadie was thinking about the whole thing. Of course, he couldn't really blame her for her thoughts. After all, they'd gotten into this so quickly that they were still piecing together the few details they knew about each other as they went along.

And Merle hadn't been entirely honest with Sadie. Maybe she could smell deception on him even if she wasn't certain where it was coming from exactly.

Merle dragged his hand across his face and got up from the table. He held a finger out to Sadie to tell her to wait—to let her know that he wasn't walking away from her. Not really. He'd be back.

When he returned, he took a cigarette from the pack that he'd gone to fetch, shook the lighter out of the pack, and flicked it. As soon as he touched the flame to the tip, he dropped the lighter and dragged his plate over to use it as an ashtray.

"I ain't been completely honest with you," Merle said. "But it ain't—it ain't been Andrea that I was lyin' about."

"Oh?" Sadie asked. She asked him more with her eyebrows, though, that she did with her mouth.

Merle sucked his teeth.

"Sophia—she ain't my niece," Merle said.

"Your daughter?" Sadie asked.

Merle laughed and shook his head.

"No damn relation," Merle said. Sadie furrowed her brows at him. "She was with this group I was with when it all started. See—me an' my kid brother?"

"Daryl?" Sadie asked.

Merle nodded.

"Me an' Daryl—we was tryin' to just make it on our own. Come up on this group at a rock quarry outside Atlanta. Just damn near stumbled into 'em."

"With Andrea?" Sadie asked.

"Met her there," Merle said, nodding his head. "She weren't nothin' but just another damn person in the group. Anyways—there was this woman there. Lil' bitty mousy damn thing. Married to this—sonofabitch. Weren't no business of mine who the hell she wanted to be married to, but my brother? Well, he had a bit of a soft spot for the woman." Merle shrugged his shoulders. "He'da rather been clubbed in the damn head than admitted straight out to me that this here married woman got his dick hard but—that's what the hell it was. I could damn near smell it on him."

Sadie crinkled her nose at Merle and he laughed to himself.

"You wanna hear this damn story or you don't?" Merle asked. "I didn't promise you no damn Shakespeare when I started this shit."

"Go ahead," Sadie said, waving her hand at him. She sighed. "We were...we were at the part where your brother's dick was hard."

Merle laughed to himself.

"That ain't the damn point," Merle said. "Point is—this here mousy ass lil' thing had a kid. A girl. Sophia."

"Oh," Sadie said, nodding her head.

"So—when I got handcuffed to a damn roof in Atlanta an' left for dead," Merle said, "I was figurin' that I weren't never gonna see none of 'em again, ya know?"

"What?" Sadie asked.

"Didn't tell you how I lost my hand?" Merle said.

"Cut it off," Sadie responded, making a sawing motion across her own wrist with her other hand.

"Cut it off 'cause this damn wanna be cowboy sheriff showed his ass up an' handcuffed me to a damn roof," Merle said. "Left me for dead."

"Why?" Sadie asked.

"'Cause he ain't like my mouth an' 'cause he thinks he's the damn king of the world. Some real stuck on hisself shit," Merle said. "We ain't gettin' no damn where, though, you don't let me finish the fuckin' story."

"Sorry," Sadie said. "Your—brother's dick is hard. You're handcuffed to a roof. Andrea is...where is Andrea?"

"At the damn rock quarry," Merle said. "Andrea's like the least important person in this story."

Sadie laughed to herself.

"I thought it was a story about Andrea," Sadie said.

"Gettin' there if you let me get any damn where," Merle said.

"Go ahead," Sadie said, waving her hand at him again.

Merle focused on his cigarette a moment.

"Where the hell was I? So—left the damn roof an' I meet up with the Governor. Saves my fuckin' life. Only reason I ain't dead an' walkin' around right now." Sadie nodded her head. She knew that part. "I'm out on a damn run—lookin' for people they thought they seen in the area, same as I was when I come up on you. I come up on this kid all alone out there. Turns out to be Soph."

"You found her?" Sadie asked. Merle nodded. "Where was her mother?"

"Lost," Merle said. "Well—I don't know her Ma was lost, exactly, but she was lost from her Ma. Same damn difference. She ain't knowed where she was or where they was. Seems that Officer Friendly—same fuckin' cowboy got my damn hand cut off for me—he leaves Soph alone out there to fend for herself. Just loses her out there an' leaves her. Cuts her ass loose. So I find her. Bring her back here. But..." Merle stopped a moment. He lowered his voice considerably. One of the best things about Sadie was that even if he was just moving his mouth, she heard him as loud and clear as she always did. It meant that he didn't have to risk being overheard if he didn't want to be. "Damn Governor's crazy. He'll do whatever the hell he's gotta do to get what the hell he wants. Even I don't wanna know half the shit the man's capable of doin'. Got him a thing for lil' girls. Likes 'em a whole damn lot. An' I don't know if it's just—ya know—he fuckin' likes kids or what the hell it is so I'm thinkin' if I bring Soph back here, he might up an' want her for his own, ya know?"

Sadie simply nodded her head at him.

"Fuck," Merle breathes out. "So—I tell him...I tell him, ya see? Soph's my neice. Say she's my brother's kid. His an' the mousy ass woman—Carol."

"The one his dick was hard for," Sadie offered.

Merle laughed to himself.

"I'm still lookin' for him. Gonna find him out there somewhere. Figurin' that if she's still alive? Sophia's Ma's gonna be with Daryl. He ain't the kind to turn nothin' lose once he's got a taste for it. If it's his? Daryl don't wanna never let shit go. Ya know the type. Hell—I'd have to throw his damn socks and shit out when he weren't home to keep him from havin' a fuckin' heart attack over losin' the holey ass things. Imagine how damn possessive the boy would be over his pussy if he ever got him one?"

Sadie crinkled her nose at him again. Merle raised his eyebrows at her and she waved her hand.

"Go ahead," she said. "Where's Andrea?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"Any fuckin' way," Merle said. "Found Andrea out there in the dirt with that crazy ass bitch. Figure—she was with my brother. If anybody was gonna know where the hell he was, or if he's still alive, it was gonna be her. But she was about ten good minutes from takin' a permanent dirt nap."

"So you saved her to find out about your brother," Sadie offered.

"You say that shit like that, makes me sound like a fuckin' dick," Merle said. "Saved her too 'cause it weren't no use in her dyin' when she ain't had to."

Sadie nodded her head.

"Does she know where your brother is?" Sadie asked.

"No," Merle said. "They left her behind too. Cut her loose. She don't know if he's alive or not."

"I'm sorry," Sadie offered.

"I'ma find him," Merle said. "He's alive. Can't nothin' kill Daryl if he don't want it to. You don't know him like I do."

"No," Sadie said. "But—I know you."

Merle laughed to himself.

"I—uh—ain't told Andrea 'bout Soph bein' here," Merle said.

"Why?" Sadie asked.

"She's gonna know she ain't my damn niece," Merle said. "Gonna know—I ain't—hell, Sadie. I ain't even fit to have no child. Weren't never fit to have no child. Andrea's gonna know that. She's gonna blow the damn cover off this shit. Maybe she even wants Soph for herself or somethin'. Figures she does a better damn job with her than I do."

Sadie frowned at her.

"Better than you?" Sadie asked.

Merle nodded his head.

"Better than me?" Sadie asked.

"She ain't gonna see you in it," Merle said. "Just gonna see what the hell exposin' a damn kid to my sorry ass is likely to do."

"Make her happy?" Sadie asked. "Because—Sophia is happy. And—she loves you."

"She's stuck with me," Merle said.

Sadie shook her head.

"She loves you," Sadie said. "I know. I see it. Andrea will see it too."

"An' let's just say she don't," Merle said. "Then what?"

Sadie shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know," Sadie said. "But—you have to talk to her. You have to tell her. About everything. It's better to have—it's better to have her on your side."

"An' if I lose Sophia?" Merle asked.

Sadie smiled softly at him. She shook her head.

"You don't," Sadie said. "Even when—we find your brother? You don't lose Sophia. You can't lose someone once you love them. Not really."


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"A small house," Carol said. "A—little cottage, maybe. Just big enough for us. A porch. A lot of natural light. A fireplace. Your turn."

"That ain't fair," Daryl said, following along behind her. "You always start the same damn way."

"I do not!" Carol protested.

"You do! You're not playin' right. You use the same idea. Yesterday it was a cabin the mountains," Daryl said. "Three days ago—a hut on some beach somewhere, but you always start with the same idea."

"Those are very different ideas," Carol responded.

"How you figure?" Daryl asked.

"There are—countless ways you could go," Carol said. "If we're on the beach, we could spend our days fishing, right? Sipping—I don't know. Coconut milk or something."

"You seen too many episodes of Gilligan's Island," Daryl said. "Besides—I read somewhere that stuff'll make you go mad."

"OK," Carol responded. "The mountains then. A nice little place where it snows in the winter and we can make snow angels and build snowmen and—spend our time together by the fireplace."

"An' be half as damn likely to get eat by bears as we are by Walkers," Daryl offered with a laugh.

"Fine," Carol said. "Then you start. I feel like I'm the one that contributes the most anyway. Any time I bring it up and leave you to start? I get the same thing from you. Just a shrug. A grunt. An 'I don't know'. You start."

Daryl laughed to himself.

They were walking. That was really all they had to do these days. They were walking toward something, though they really weren't sure what. Maybe they were walking toward the future. Their future. Together.

And the game that they'd devised to fill hours that sometimes got quite long and quite difficult to fill was to talk about that future.

What did it look like? What would it be like?

What could a future possibly look like in this world? What kind of hope was there for them?

It was almost impossible to imagine, but the truth was that it was ahead of them, looming in the distance. As Carol had repeated to Daryl more than once, they were at a point where one of two things would happen. Either they'd be killed, or they'd live to see the future. And Daryl, honestly, couldn't disagree with that. It was solid logic.

"You know I don't know what to say," Daryl said.

"Well you're going to think of something," Carol said. "Your time to shine has come, Dixon. What's the ideal future look like?"

Daryl swallowed.

"Not a whole lot different than this, I don't guess," Daryl said. He stopped talking.

"You're off to a good start," Carol urged. She slowed her steps, allowing Daryl to catch up with her. "But what does it look like? Come on—anything you want. The sky's the limit. Our perfection."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders.

"Find a place," Daryl said. "Somewhere safe. Somewhere—we could make safe. Like the farm but—better. We do it smarter. Better fences."

Carol smiled at him.

"I like that," Carol said. "A farmhouse?"

Daryl laughed to himself. She wanted a house. She wanted somewhere to stay permanently. Daryl liked the idea of it, too. He'd never had really the picturesque kind of home that Carol described when she was falling asleep and, like a bedtime story, was entertaining him with yet another version of the daydream future that they pretended was possible for them.

If it existed, Daryl might really like to try it.

"Yeah," he said. "A farmhouse. Good fences. Reinforced. Three layers thick, even, so if they got through one layer we could clear 'em out 'fore they got at us. Push 'em back."

"What would we do in this farmhouse?" Carol asked. "When we're not clearing Walkers off our three-layer thick, impenetrable fences?"

Daryl shrugged.

"Don't know," Daryl said. "About what we do now."

"You're not playing right," Carol teased.

"I'd hunt," Daryl said. "So you wouldn't never go hungry."

"I'd grow a garden," Carol offered. "So you'd eat something besides meat."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Find some chickens. You want a cow?" He asked.

"I wouldn't hate having a cow," Carol offered.

"I'd find you a cow," Daryl said. "Maybe two or three."

"I'd like that," Carol said. "What else?"

"What else is there?" Daryl asked. "We'd be safe. Have everything we needed. Have us a nice little house. Maybe—if we got safe enough...we'd maybe find us a dog. Then we'd maybe...have us a family or somethin'."

Carol stopped walking and Daryl kept walking. He could feel his shoulders drawing up like they were crawling up his neck in an attempt to escape. If he had any power he could dream up at all in that moment, it would be the power to walk backward in time and unsay the words that had just barely escaped from his mouth. When Carol didn't pick up her steps behind him, Daryl tossed out a few words to try to soothe things over.

"Was just an idea," Daryl said. "Dumb one."

"Was it?" Carol asked.

Daryl stopped walking and turned around. She was standing where she'd stopped, but she didn't exactly look angry. Maybe she was just resting her feet.

Daryl licked his lips.

"You don't think it was?" Daryl asked. "Ain't a—ain't a real good world."

"Not now it isn't," Carol said. "Not here. Not—what we've had until now. But somewhere safe? We're established for a little while. We know we're safe. Our needs are met. That's a different world."

"Would be," Daryl said, nodding his head. "So—you would like it? I mean—just thinkin' about it. It's a long way off. But—it's a long time, maybe. The future. If we were to find somethin' safe like that."

Carol smiled at him. She laughed to herself.

"It's not entirely up to me," she said. "But to be honest? Daryl—we're playing Russian roulette as it is."

"I guess you right," Daryl said.

Carol started walking again, readjusting the bag she was carrying on her back as she stepped forward.

"So—we have food, a safe place...maybe a family. What else do we have in the future?" Carol asked. "Keep up."

Daryl laughed to himself and started walking once Carol had passed him.

"You're pretty good at this, you know," Carol called back to him. She urged him on. "Keep going. What else is there?"

Daryl considered what he might tack onto their creation of some kind of picture perfect life when he heard something in the distance. At first he wasn't sure what it was, but when heard it again—this time seeming a little louder—he knew exactly what it was. He stopped walking.

"Gunfire," Daryl said. Carol was already looking at him over her shoulder. Her expression told him that she'd heard it too.

"What do we do?" Carol asked.

"Where there's guns, there's people," Daryl said.

"Not necessarily the kind of people that I want to get to know," Carol said.

"They could just be in trouble," Daryl said.

"And it could be trouble that we don't want," Carol responded.

"Come on," Daryl said. "We'll keep our distance. Just until we know what the hell we're dealin' with."

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When Sadie had shown up to their apartment to ask for another private word with Andrea, Michonne had left the two of them alone just to have a few moments out of Andrea's company.

Andrea, apparently enamored of the place because of the fact that the people there had been able to do something for her that Michonne hadn't been able to do, didn't want to hear about possibly moving on. She was a "stayer" and she'd found a place where she could stay indefinitely. She had hot food, hot water, a comfortable bed, and walls around her that were so high that nothing could get in.

And Michonne wondered if those same fences also served to keep things from getting out.

She'd met the leader of Woodbury and she wasn't sure about the man. Something about him immediately made her hair stand up on end. He'd been out there by the helicopter that had gone down and Michonne still remembered the very first feeling that the man had given her.

Michonne had heard the man's speech, too, the day before.

The day before, apparently following the instructions of a soldier that they rescued and who had later succumbed to his wounds, the Governor had taken some of his men out and they'd found a military base. The entire thing, according to the Governor, had been void of the living. All of them had fallen to Walkers or to attacks of some sort. There were no survivors. None. But the base had offered up two trucks worth of supplies that he and his men had brought back to serve the good people of Woodbury.

Michonne had no reason to not believe the man, but the fact remained that she simply didn't believe him. There was something about his story that didn't seem quite right. There was something that just didn't feel right to her—and if she'd learned anything from the world, it was to trust her gut instinct more than she ever had before.

It didn't take Michonne long to find the military trucks parked out in the "storage" area of Woodbury. She circled around one of the trucks for a moment, examining it. There were bullet holes in the side of the truck. It had been shot a number of times. Michonne trailed her fingers along the holes, assuring herself that they were real and not some kind of optical illusion created by a paint job. These weren't placed there for any sort of decoration. They were real.

Beyond that, there were blood splatters on the truck. Michonne scratched at it, scraping some of the blood under nail. It was blood. Dried blood. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it.

Michonne climbed up on the truck and looked around there for evidence—evidence of what, she wasn't sure, but she searched for it nonetheless.

She heard him walking up before he spoke to her, even if he thought he'd catch her by surprise.

"Is there something I can help you with, Michonne?" The Governor asked, offering Michonne a toothy smile.

Michonne hopped down off the truck.

"I was just—admiring the trucks," Michonne said. "They're fine pieces of machinery."

"Are they?" The Governor asked. "I don't know much about vehicles myself. But if they're good enough for the military, I'm sure they'll serve Woodbury well."

"It's a shame about the post," Michonne said.

The Governor nodded his head.

"It is," he said. "It was."

"No survivors?" Michonne asked.

"None," the Governor said. "When we got there, everyone was dead. Walking. We put them down. Cleaned up the area. The fewer Biters there are wandering around outside, the less we have to worry about our people."

"When they go outside the fences," Michonne offered. The man nodded. "But they're safe in here."

The Governor laughed.

"You can rest easy, Michonne," the Governor said. "You and your friend, Andrea. Woodbury is the safest place left in the world. There's nothing getting in here that we don't know about."

Michonne nodded her head. That she didn't doubt. She doubted there was anything getting out, either, that the Governor didn't know about.

"What about the captain?" Michonne asked.

"The captain?" The Governor asked. "He was dead too. There weren't any survivors."

"The one who told you where to find the men," Michonne offered.

"We did everything we could," the Governor said. "The man's injuries were just too serious."

"But he lived long enough to tell you where to find the men?" Michonne asked.

The Governor laughed to himself.

"He lived long enough to tell me who he was," the Governor said. "Where his men were. That he hoped we could help them. He regained consciousness for about half an hour before succumbing to what we believe was a blood clot. It's simple, really. It could happen to anyone."

"I bet it could," Michonne said. "What about—his body?"

"Like I said," the Governor responded, "we gave him a quiet burial in the small graveyard. I can show you where it is—hopefully you'll never have anyone to visit there. He didn't have any family or friends. We thought it best to just handle things as quickly and respectfully as possible."

Michonne simply nodded at his explanation.

"Is there something I can help you with, Michonne?" The Governor asked.

"Just one thing," Michonne said. "The trucks—there are bullet holes in them. Both—in the ones that you brought back and, I can see from here, the ones you left here driving. That seems like an awful lot of bullets. Who was shooting? The last accounts I had, the Dead didn't use bullets."

The Governor laughed to himself.

"I ordered that the men take care of the Biters with knives," the Governor said. "Some of them got a little out of control. They decided to shoot them. A few of the bullets passed right through. Into the trucks."

Michonne nodded her head and the man raised his eyebrows at her.

"Is there something else that I can help you with?" He asked. "You seem to have a great deal of interest in how we do things around here."

"Just about how you handle your runs," Michonne said. "Bringing in new people."

"Well, now," the Governor said. "You've seen that first hand. We brought you and Andrea in. Saved you. We saved Andrea's life. If it weren't for Woodbury? She wouldn't have made it."

"That I appreciate," Michonne said.

She started to walk off, leaving the man with the trucks, but then she stopped when he called her name. She turned around to face him again.

"Some of our scouts got wind of some other groups in the area," the Governor said. "They saw some evidence that there were people nearby. I've got a group going out tomorrow to find them and invite them to Woodbury if they're friendly. Merle's leading up the group. If you wanted to go along—you could see first-hand how we handle things like that. This time without the blindfold."

Michonne considered it. She wasn't fond of Merle, and she wasn't sure she trusted him, but Andrea seemed to trust him. Although he didn't strike her as the kind of man that she'd love to be best friends with, she thought he was probably a good deal more honest, at least, than the Governor.

Still, she wasn't sure that wanted to go out alone with him. There was something there that just didn't feel quite right.

"Maybe some other time," Michonne said. "When Andrea's feeling stronger. I'm not comfortable leaving her here just yet."

"The offer's always on the table," the Governor assured her.


	15. Chapter 15

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"These are my dolls," Sophia said, picking up two dolls from the bed that Andrea was sitting on and offering them to her. "Maybe I'm a little too old for dolls, but I like them and Uncle Merle likes to bring me things. He thinks—he thinks I needed more than one. Usually he brings me books, though. This one's my favorite."

"They're very nice," Andrea said, doing her best to admire Sophia's dolls. Sophia took the two dolls back and replaced them on the bed where they'd been before. Then she walked over to a small shelf in her room.

"And these are my books," Sophia said. "I don't keep all of them. I just keep the ones I like the most and the others I take to my class whenever we finish reading them so everyone else can read them too. We read every night and now Sadie reads with us and she shows me how to sign some of the words while we're reading. I'm getting really good at signing. Can you sign some?"

Andrea shook her head.

"No," she admitted. "I don't—know any of it."

"It's a language," Sophia said. "Just like—well, just like any other language. But it's really good because you can be really quiet and you can still talk. I can say a lot already to Sadie, but I'm learning more every day. Do you know, Andrea—do you know what your name is?"

"No," Andrea said.

"This is how you spell it," Sophia said. Andrea watched as the girl clearly struggled her way through the gestures she was making with her fingers. Still, even for all her struggle, it was clear that she was dedicated to mastering the task. "And this—this is your sign. Sadie gave it to you. See? She gives everyone a sign. Like this. See? See this is how you sign friend. Like this. But you—this is an A. So it's like friend and an A but she mixed them together. This is mine. It's how you sign 'sweet' and then you make an S like this. Sadie made it for me."

"That's great," Andrea said. "It seems like you're learning a lot."

"I like the school here," Sophia said. "And Uncle Merle thinks homework is really important. But I like learning the sign language just as much as any of the other stuff."

"Sit down with me, for a minute?" Andrea asked. She patted the bed and Sophia came over and sat down next to her.

It was Sadie that had invited Andrea to dinner. It was Sadie that had told Andrea that Sophia was there because Merle had found her alone in the woods, and that Merle was acting as her uncle just so that nobody thought maybe they could do something better with the child than he was doing.

Andrea, honestly, had been floored. What she knew of Merle Dixon wouldn't have made her think the man would even be good with children—less likely that he could actually care for one. She'd almost been afraid to get to the apartment and see how Sophia might be living.

But Andrea was surprised.

The apartment was clean. The meal that was prepared and served was as nice of a meal as Andrea could have made in the small kitchen of the apartment that she shared with Michonne. Sophia seemed, for the most part, happy. She entertained them during dinner, doing most of the talking, and then she'd offered to help with the dishes even though Sadie had dismissed her to show her room to Andrea.

The girl's room wasn't, perhaps, as filled to the brim with things as some children's rooms may have been in the past, but she seemed to have all that she really needed and a few things besides. On her walls she'd thumbtacked a few drawings. She had books and a basket of assorted items. She had two dolls. Clearly she was clean and dressed.

Sophia was very different than she had been when Andrea had known her before, and Andrea had to give credit where credit was due. Even for all that was wrong with Merle Dixon, he was a better father than Ed Peletier had been, and he was making an effort. Andrea had been surprised, at the table, to see that what the man lacked in table manners, he made up in his efforts to urge Sophia to keep talking and to keep entertaining them—a very different dynamic than her father who had seemed annoyed if the girl so much as opened her mouth in his presence.

But Andrea had come there to spend a little time with Sophia in private and to let the girl tell her, firsthand, what she felt about her life, and that's what Andrea intended to do. She wanted to know, for herself, what Sophia would say about her life when Merle and Sadie weren't around—and they'd allowed her the privacy to do that.

When Sophia sat down next to her, Andrea searched for the way she wanted to handle things. She'd tried to plan her visit with the girl ahead of time, but she hadn't exactly come up with the whole thing word for word.

"I know you might not know it, Sophia," Andrea said, "but—we looked for you after you got lost. Daryl? He helped your Mama a lot. He looked for you every day."

Sophia nodded her head at Andrea and frowned at her. It was the first time that Andrea had seen Sophia frown since she'd gotten there.

"I wish you had brought my mama with you," Sophia said.

Andrea swallowed and nodded her head.

"I wish I could have brought her with me too," Andrea said. "But I haven't seen her for a very long time, Sophia."

"Me either," Sophia said.

"I know," Andrea said. "And—I'm really sorry for that."

"Uncle Merle says he's gonna find her," Sophia said. "He says she's probably with Daryl and he's just got to find them."

"I think your mama could be with Daryl," Andrea agreed. "And—I think that Merle might find them." Andrea sucked in a breath. "I know that—you miss your mama and you wish she was here," Andrea said. "But—what about living here?"

Sophia shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head. Her expression told Andrea that she was still thinking about her mother.

"You like living here?" Andrea asked.

Sophia nodded her head, but she wasn't ready yet to offer any words to Andrea. Maybe she was doing her best to swallow back what she was feeling.

"I wanted to ask you—because you could if you wanted to—I wanted to ask you if you'd like to stay with me," Andrea said. "If it might—make you happy to stay with me."

Sophia rolled her eyes up at Andrea.

"I could stay some with you," Sophia said softly. "But—just not on nights when I have school. Or—when Uncle Merle has to go out. I like being here on the mornings when he has to go out and Sadie walks me to school in the morning and she probably would miss doing that."

Andrea nodded her head and brushed Sophia's hair back from her face.

"I meant—if you wanted to live with me, Sophia," Andrea said. "If you weren't—if you weren't happy here? With Merle and Sadie. You could live with me and Michonne. If you thought you wanted to. But, Sophia? It's up to you. We all want you to live where you're happiest."

Sophia reached for her doll, the one that she'd identified as her favorite, and hugged it to her chest. She picked at the doll's yarn hair with her fingertips. Then she shook her head at Andrea.

"I think I need to stay with Uncle Merle," Sophia said. "And Sadie. I think—I'd better stay here in my room, Andrea. But—I could spend the night with you sometimes. Just...you know."

Andrea laughed to herself.

"Just not on school nights or when Merle's heading out for a run," Andrea filled in. Sophia nodded. "I think we could do that, if you wanted to."

"Are you mad?" Sophia asked.

Andrea shook her head.

"I'm not mad," Andrea said. "I'm happy that—you're as happy as you can be. And your mama? She'd be happy about that too, Sophia. She wouldn't want you to be sad. OK? She'd want you to be as happy as you can be."

"Until she gets here," Sophia said.

"Until she gets here," Andrea said. "And after that too."

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They waited until the sun was good and up, watching the wall from the cover of the patch of woods.

They'd been watching the little town, off and on while they camped a short distance away, for the few days since they'd followed the vehicles back there. It had been impossible to tell what had happened, but when they'd found the source of the gunshots they'd heard, there had been a lot of dead.

Of course, that was pretty much the description of the world these days. There was a lot of dead.

They'd tracked the trucks and followed them back to the little town. They'd stayed out of sight of the guard that worked the fences of the town and they'd taken in as much as they could of the place.

But it was just a little town. A town with guards that kept the Walkers picked off. A town where people came and went, especially during the daylight hours. A town with fences that were plenty high enough to protect against Walkers and people alike.

"Now's as good a time as any," Daryl said. "Them trucks have been gone about an hour. The guard they just put on is fresh. I got a good feeling about the place."

"What if it's a trap?" Carol asked, keeping her cover a little more completely than Daryl was at the moment. If the guard was really searching the wooded area, they'd have seen Daryl. But they appeared to mostly be looking for Walkers or other obvious signs of people approaching the fences.

"If it's a trap, it's a pretty damn elaborate trap," Daryl said. "You can hear people in there. It ain't empty."

"If you trust it," Carol said, "then I'll trust it. You tell me."

Daryl nodded at her.

This could be it. It could be a safe place. It could be the fences that they wanted to keep out the dead. It could be a place where they'd find community and a chance to start a real life. It could be the opportunity to start on that future they'd just been daydreaming about until now.

"I think it's about the best we're gonna find," Daryl said. "And—we'd be stupid not to check it out. Worst case scenario? We just leave. Come right on back out here and go on our way."

"Alright," Carol said, standing up and letting go of the security of her cover. "Let's go."

She stepped out of their cover first, even though Daryl would have been the one that preferred to go first, and held her hands up as she called out to get the attention of the guards. It worked, and one of them yelled back at her to ask what she wanted. Daryl stepped out behind her, holding his hands up in the same way that Carol was doing.

"We want to talk to who's in charge," Daryl said. "Wanna talk about comin' inside."

"How many are you?" One of the people on guard asked.

"Two," Daryl called back. "Just what'cha see."

"Where are you coming from?" The guard asked.

"Nowhere now," Daryl said. "Just wandering. Don't got a home to speak of."

While they were talking, the gates to the place opened up. A man appeared, all smiles.

"Enough with the questions," he said. "They'll be time for that. Come on inside. We're happy to have you. Welcome to Woodbury."

Daryl glanced at Carol. She looked a little afraid, but she nodded her head at him and walked toward the man.

"Carol," she said.

"Carol," he repeated, shaking her hand and then holding it for a moment. "They call me the Governor."

"Daryl," Daryl said when the man offered his hand. He shook the man's hand.

"Daryl," he said. "Well—Carol and Daryl...come inside. This is Woodbury. I'm afraid the first stop for anyone new here is the clinic. Just a precaution. We're a Biter free community and we like to be sure that we're not admitting anyone who may be infected."

The man led them inside and the gates were closed behind them.

It was a town. Plain and simple. They were on a main street and from where Daryl stood he could see people walking here and there as normally as they ever had. They were all involved in things—normal, everyday things.

And Daryl smiled to himself, because he could see the potential in the place. It could, possibly, be everything they wanted it to be.

"We ain't bit," Daryl said. "But—we understand if you gotta see that for yourself."

The man smiled at him.

"I'm glad you understand," he said. "I think you're going to like it here."

"I think we are too," Daryl said.

He reached out a hand in Carol's direction and she slipped her hand in his. He held her hand as they walked behind the man who called himself the Governor. Daryl didn't want to put words in Carol's mouth, but he thought he could read her expressions pretty well by now.

She was happy to see Woodbury. It looked like the kind of town that, just maybe, they could call home.


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"Didn't get too much out of him," Merle said as he pulled his clean shirt over his head.

Merle showered off in the private room provided by the Governor for just such a thing as often as he showered in his own home during the times when they found a lot of people in the area.

Everyone who came to Woodbury was subjected to two things—a full physical exam and questioning. How they went about the questioning depended on the person. For most people, it was simply a questioning. They were offered something to eat and a nice drink of their choice. They sat at a round table and had a comfortable conversation with the Governor and, usually, with Merle. At the end of it all, they shook hands and were welcomed to the community.

For some people, though, it wasn't that pleasant—and it wasn't always Merle's choice as to who fell into which category. He simply did his job, and it was his job to ask questions of other people, but not of the Governor.

"Did you question the woman?" The Governor asked.

"You said don't," Merle reminded him.

The Governor laughed to himself.

"So I did," he said. "Don't worry about it. I'll speak with her."

"You gonna want me to come along," Merle said, not sure if he was really asking the man or trying to make a suggestion.

"Won't be necessary," The Governor said. "What did you find out?"

"Not much I ain't knowed before," Merle said.

The Governor raised an eyebrow at him and Merle gestured toward the table where they sat and, essentially, debriefed a lot of these types of "conversations." The Governor nodded at him and while Merle lit a cigarette, the Governor made a drink for each of them.

"I knowed the Oriental 'fore all this," Merle said. "Part of the group that I was in outside Atlanta."

"The ones that left you for dead?" The Governor asked.

Merle nodded his head.

"That's what the hell they do. Leave their people for dead. Use 'em for what the hell they need an' then when they ain't worth it no more—you get the idea," Merle said.

The Governor nodded.

"Samuels said he thought they were with other people," the Governor said. "Did you get information on that group?"

"Said he's still with the same bunch," Merle said. "But he ain't no more. Now that they here?" He shook his head. "Him an' Lil' Bo Peep's just a couple damn loose ends for Officer Friendly. Odds are good he don't even come lookin' for 'em."

The Governor nodded.

"We'll take care of them," the Governor said.

"How you—plannin' on doin' that?" Merle asked.

The Governor laughed to himself.

"You've never asked that before," he offered. "We'll turn them loose. Outside of Woodbury. I'll have someone take them out."

Merle licked his lips and dropped his eyes to the table.

"They know we here," Merle said. "Know Woodbury's here, I mean."

"We'll talk to them about that," the Governor said.

"I mean the group," Merle said. "They know we're here. We ain't exactly low profile."

"Do you think that's a problem?" The Governor asked.

Merle shook his head.

"Not if Officer Friendly don't think it benefits him," Merle said. "But—they at a prison. Not too far from here. Didn't get all the details about—what they got or what the hell the situation looks like. Just got it was a prison."

"The prison was lost," the Governor said. "Overrun. Impossible to clear. I sent a group out myself."

Merle laughed to himself.

"Maybe you sent the wrong damn bunch," Merle said. "'Cause that's where the hell he said they was. And he weren't in the right frame of mind to be bullshittin' me."

"It's worth exploring," the Governor said.

"Just my opinion, but—it's worth leavin' alone," Merle said. "If it was so damn overrun, there prob'ly ain't shit there except walls, and we got those better'n they do."

"Was there anything else you found out?" The Governor asked.

Merle thought about it a moment and shook his head.

"No," he said. He tasted his drink and then took a drag from his cigarette. "He didn't wanna say shit, but I also think he didn't have a whole lotta shit to say."

"You look disappointed," the Governor said.

Merle laughed to himself and picked his cigarette back up from the ashtray where he'd rested it for half a second to taste the drink again.

"Thought he might know where the hell my brother was," Merle said. "Fuckers cut him loose too. Back at the damn farm where they cut Andrea loose."

"His wife?" The Governor asked.

"What?" Merle asked.

"His wife," the Governor said. "Did they say if she was alive?"

Merle's stomach twisted. For just a moment he'd almost forgotten his lie about Daryl being married. He licked his lips. He shook his head.

"Cut her loose too," Merle said. "Don't know where the hell neither of 'em are."

The Governor nodded his head.

"You've done good today, Merle," the Governor said.

"Don't really feel like it," Merle said.

The Governor laughed and stood up.

"But you have. That's why you're my right hand. I can count on you. I can depend on you. I always know you'll come through for me. That's why you have the best, Merle. Anything you want," the Governor said.

Merle nodded his head.

"Much appreciated," he mumbled.

"And I've got something special for you," the Governor said. "Something that I think you'll want."

Merle turned his eyes up to the Governor.

"Right about now, all I want is to go home," Merle said. "Soph'll prob'ly be finishin' her lessons right about now. Sadie'll be startin' supper. About all I want right now is to head on back there."

"I think you'll like what I've got for you," the Governor said. "While you were gone? Another pair came to the gates. Requested entrance. They've finished their examinations and they're waiting for questioning right now in the greeting room."

Merle shook his head.

"Can it keep? You know I—mean to do what you want, but it takes it outta me. Would take it outta anyone to do that," Merle said.

"Simple questioning," the Governor said. "They're alone. They carried everything they had on their backs. They had no group. Just a simple entrance exam."

Merle nodded his head and got up. He took the last drag off his cigarette that it offered, snubbed it out in the ashtray, and drained the drink that he'd been given.

"Let's go get it handled," Merle said.

"You'll take this one alone," the Governor said. "I trust you to handle it. You'll let me know when you're ready to show them to an apartment."

Merle nodded at him, accepted the job, and headed out of the room and down the hallway to where he knew he'd find the greeting room—a much nicer place than the one he'd left behind not too long ago.

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Daryl sat at the table and held Carol's hand. With his other hand, he alternated between smoking one of the cigarettes out of the pack that had been offered to him and drinking the cup of hot coffee that he'd been given. Carol nursed her coffee, and the only sign that she was even the slightest bit uncomfortable was the fact that she kept rubbing her thumb against Daryl's hand.

"They said everything was alright," Daryl said, feeling like he couldn't take too much more of the silence that surrounded them while they were waiting. It felt like they'd been in the room for hours.

"What?" Carol asked.

"They said everything was alright," Daryl said. "Checked me from asshole to appetite. Said I was healthy—that there weren't nothin' they were worried about or...alarmed about...or whatever."

Carol hummed and nodded. She drank more of the coffee.

"You're bein' quiet," Daryl said. "They ain't said nothin' to you?"

Carol looked at him and shrugged her shoulders.

"They examined me. I guess they told me the same thing they told you," Carol said. "Everything's fine. I'm healthy." She laughed to herself. "No bites."

Daryl laughed.

"No bites here, neither," Daryl confirmed. "When you think—they're comin' in here?"

"I don't know," Carol said. "I was starting to wonder if—they've forgotten we're here."

"What you think they'll ask?" Daryl asked.

"Our names," Carol said. "Where we're from. Just—who we are. If we're with anyone. Probably the same things they asked us out there. Or at least—they asked me a lot of questions while they were examining me."

"They asked me a lotta medical stuff," Daryl said. "I didn't know the answer to half of it."

"They asked me a lot too," Carol confirmed. "They'll probably want to know what happened to us out there."

"What do we tell 'em?" Daryl asked.

"The truth?" Carol offered.

"What about us?" Daryl asked.

"What about us?" Carol echoed.

"What do we tell 'em about us?" Daryl asked. "They're prob'ly gonna ask—you know—what are we. Like—if we wanna be together or..."

Carol sucked in a breath and let it out. She pulled her hand back and Daryl let her have it. She ran her fingers through her hair. It was getting longer. It was starting to curl and those curls were going in every which direction. Daryl liked the way it looked. He liked the way it felt, too. When it had first started to grow enough for Daryl to catch it between his fingers, he'd tugged at her hair and she'd reacted badly. She hadn't cared for it and she'd asked him not to do it. He'd been careful not to even touch her hair for a while. And then she'd explained to him that Ed used to pull her hair, but not because he liked tugging at it. He'd do it to control her.

Daryl had promised he'd never do that—at least not so that it wasn't nice for her. He'd stop the minute she asked him to stop. She never asked him to stop and, instead, she seemed to like when he tugged at her curls, and she smiled at him in the somewhat wicked way she had of smiling at him when he'd pull her head back, like he liked to do, to run his tongue up the length of her throat.

Daryl shivered, aware suddenly that his thoughts were getting the best of him and his body was starting to react—and that was only with a thought about how unruly the curls wrapping around her fingers looked when she raked her hand through them.

He cleared his throat and rearranged himself in the chair.

Carol smirked at him.

"Are you OK?" She asked. "Your face is—a little red."

"Just got to thinkin' about somethin'," Daryl said quickly.

"Obviously," Carol said. "Did you want to answer my question?"

Daryl swallowed.

"Didn't hear it," he admitted. "What—what'd you ask?"

"What do you want to tell them, Daryl?" Carol asked. "I think it might be a good idea if we know ahead of time what we're both going to say. What do you want to tell them about us?"

"That we're—together?" Daryl asked.

"Is that a question?" Carol asked.

"It's what I wanna say," Daryl said. "But I don't know what you wanna say."

"I think we're together," Carol said. "If you want us to stay that way."

Daryl nodded his head.

"You?" He asked.

"I'm happy the way we are," Carol said. "Do we ask them to stay together?"

Daryl nodded.

"Don't know how—traditional they might be," Daryl said. "Might not—let us stay together if we're just—if we just tell 'em we're together an' there's nothing more than that."

Carol smirked at him. The corners of her mouth turning upward.

"I like to think there's something more than that," Carol said. "I mean—you are the man that—I'm building a perfect life with, right? The man that's—going to get me cows and chickens and all the meat that I can eat."

Daryl's body reacted to the suggestion. Unfortunately, for as much as he found her curls a turn-on, he also found it a turn-on when Carol used that tone of voice to talk about the daydreams that they came up with together. He never would have thought he was the kind of asshole that got a hard-on from hearing a woman talk about fireplaces and family dinners, but there he was.

Daryl cleared his throat again and shifted around once more.

"You OK?" Carol asked. "You're—redder now."

"Fine," Daryl said. "Fine. Just—fine. So we tell 'em? That we're—that there's somethin' more?"

"I think so," Carol said.

"What more?" Daryl asked. "I mean would you want to be...I mean it ain't like nobody's gonna know the difference and you don't have to say nothin' that you don't wanna say...but would you want to be...shit..."

"Married?" Carol asked.

Daryl swallowed. He felt like his face went numb for just a second and he wondered what Carol would think about something like that. They'd danced all around the idea, but dancing around it was entirely different than landing straight on it.

"If you wanted," Daryl said.

"Are you asking me to marry you?" Carol asked with a laugh.

Daryl swallowed again and glanced around them. They were essentially in a waiting room. Maybe it had once been an office of sorts.

"Not the best time?" He asked.

"It's kind of romantic," Carol said with a laugh. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Did you wanna screw around?"

Daryl stared at her. He actually wanted nothing more than that, but it might not be the best first impression if someone were to walk in.

He snorted at her.

"Not the best damn place, either," Daryl said.

Carol laughed to herself.

"There's time for that later," she said.

"So there's a later?" Daryl teased.

"It's not every day we get married," Carol said.

Daryl shook his head.

"Somehow I figured it happened different than that. A lot different," Daryl said.

"Once upon a time, it did," Carol said. "Maybe we'll work on it later. Right now? It's going to have to do. Are you OK with that?"

Daryl nodded his head.

"You?" He asked.

Carol laughed.

"I'm—actually I'm really...really wonderful right now," Carol said. "But—I do think they've forgotten us."

Before Daryl could comment one way or another on whether or not they'd been forgotten, he heard heavy footsteps in the hallway outside the door. He glanced at Carol. She was already looking toward the door. She heard them too. He waited a second to see if they'd pass by, but they stopped in front of the door.

Daryl reached for Carol's hand, holding it in his. When the door opened, though, he wasn't at all prepared for what he saw or heard.

"Hooo-ly shit!"


	17. Chapter 17

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"Holy shit!" Merle declared. "Holy shit! You're fuckin' alive!"

Merle had gone to the room expecting some new random faces. He'd figured that he'd be expected to grill the assholes on their lives and, as soon as he discovered they were just as boring as most of the people they'd ever brought to Woodbury, he'd see them out of the greeting room and he'd take them to find a place they'd call home in the town.

He didn't expect to see his little brother sitting there holding the hand of a woman that he honestly didn't know was capable of living that long.

Daryl hit his feet the minute that he saw Merle and Merle met him for a hug. His brother embraced him back, sputtering something about not knowing that he'd be alive.

"Of course I'm fuckin' alive, Derlina," Merle remarked, breaking away from his brother. "It was your scrawny ass I figured didn't make it out there."

"Make it? Hell—I ain't even seen a bad day in damn near a year, probably," Daryl said with some amusement.

Merle could barely stop looking at Daryl, and Daryl was staring right back at him with the same look of disbelief in his eye that Merle felt in his chest. He believed his brother was alive because he needed to believe that, but part of him had started to give up hope. He'd started to convince himself that he'd never see Daryl alive again.

But there he was, alive as he'd ever been.

"Fuckin' hell—how'd you get here?" Merle asked.

"Followed the damn trucks," Daryl said. "I hope you didn't think this was some kinda best kept secret or some shit. How the hell—I wanted to think I'd run into you, Merle...but I figured your ass bled out in Atlanta."

"Damn near did," Merle said. "But I run into the damn Governor. He brought me back here an' the doc we got saved my life." Merle held up the cuff that he wore to cover his stump. "Cut my damn hand off when I figured Officer Friendly was just gonna call my ass dead—cut me loose like the fuckin' dead weight he thought I was."

"I come back for you, Merle," Daryl said.

Merle saw his brother's throat bob and he heard the change in his voice. He wanted to give him hell for the obvious emotion that overtook him, but Merle found that he couldn't. His own throat ached at the thought, even. Still, Merle wasn't one for grand shows of emotion if he could avoid it and he could usually avoid it by changing the subject and changing the mood of a room.

"Hell, Daryl—don't cry in front no damn woman," Merle said, gesturing toward Carol with his head. Merle sat down in the chair across from Carol and looked at her for the first time. There was something different about her. There was a good deal different about her, really, but Merle couldn't quite put his finger on what the change was.

Daryl sat when Merle settled.

"Hello, Merle," Carol said, catching Merle's eye while he examined her.

"Didn't figure you'd be alive," Merle said.

Carol smiled at him.

"I can say the same about you," Carol said. "I'd say my odds were as good as yours."

Merle laughed to himself and licked his lips. She had spunk. He hadn't noticed that before.

"Got a lotta balls for the damn mousy thing I remember you bein'," Merle said. "Runnin' around like you was scared of your own damn shadow."

Carol didn't duck her head and she didn't avert her eyes. She didn't even lose the smile that was slightly turning the corners of her mouth upward.

"It wasn't my shadow that I was afraid of, Merle," Carol said, raising her eyebrows at him.

Merle nodded his head, corrected. He cut his eyes toward his brother, back at Carol, and then back to his brother.

There was no mistaking, in Merle's mind, the way that his little brother was looking at the woman next to him. Merle would have had to have been struck blind not to see it.

"You—uh—got anything you wanna tell me?" Merle asked, looking between the two of them. They exchanged glances, but neither of them offered any information. "I seen you holdin' hands like you was in junior high when I come in the door."

"We're married," Daryl said quickly, almost like the words were hot and he was trying to get them out of his mouth before they could further burn him.

Merle laughed to himself. Even Daryl's little woman looked shocked to hear the words.

"Married?" Merle asked. He looked at Carol. She was staring at Daryl and didn't even notice that she had Merle's attention. "You 'member to tell her that?"

Daryl looked a little nervous, then. Merle knew his brother well enough to know that embarrassment could lead to him pulling away from the whole situation or it could lead to anger. Really, Merle didn't want either one. Not now and not here.

"Nobody invited me to the damn wedding?" Merle asked, hoping his teasing would lighten his brother back up.

"There wasn't a wedding," Carol said. She seemed on board with the whole thing all of a sudden. And she gave Daryl a soft smile before she reached out and brushed her fingers over the hand he had resting on the table. He didn't take her hand, but he did let his shoulders fall forward slightly.

"Weren't no wedding," Daryl said. "Maybe we ain't exactly married. Not by no real law, maybe."

"Married enough, I think," Carol said. "Unless—you need to see the license?"

Merle laughed to himself. He rubbed his hand over his face and then scratched at the beard that was growing in where he'd neglected to shave for a couple of days. It itched him something terrible and he'd take care of it that night—even before Sadie had time to complain that it irritated her skin.

"I don't know what the hell to say," Merle said. "As much shit as I've seen." He looked at Daryl. "You happy?"

Daryl nodded his head, glancing at Carol the whole time like he was expecting her to tell him if it was OK for him to feel the way that he felt. Merle was actually a little pleased to see that, rather than scolding him or even directing him, she simply smiled at him.

"Fuck," Merle said with a laugh. He looked at Carol. "You happy with this asshole?"

"He's not an asshole," Carol said. "I know assholes. And—I am. Do we have to ask for your blessing or something? Because—fifteen minutes ago we didn't even know you were alive."

Merle laughed to himself.

"You got my damn blessin' if you want it an' if you don't want it you got it any damn way," Merle said. "You tellin' me this shit—just about knocked me for a loop but it's gonna make one hell of a funny damn story when I tell you what the fuck I gotta tell you. 'Cause I sure as shit can't say I didn't see this shit comin' a mile away."

"You ain't knowed shit," Daryl said quickly.

"Knowed you was lookin' at her ass back at the damn rock quarry's what the hell I knowed!" Merle spat.

Daryl's face ran red. Maybe he'd neglected to tell his sugar—his not-so-lawfully wedded wife—that he'd been checking her out when she was married to another man. She didn't look horrified or shocked, though. She looked rather pleased. Still, Merle figured his baby brother would be talking about that later whether he had a desire to do so or not.

"Fuck—listen here. That man what brung you in here? The Governor?" Merle started.

"What the hell's his real name?" Daryl asked. "He ain't never said shit but the Governor."

"And he ain't gonna say shit more'n that," Merle said. "He don't go by nothin' else. Not even to them that's shackin' up with him. In an' out his bed when he pleases an' they still call him the Governor. That ain't the point, though, so I need you to shut'cha mouth an' open your damn ears an' listen to me. Read my lips. Hell, whatever you gotta do."

"We're listening," Carol offered.

Merle nodded his head.

"He don't like lyin' an' he don't like thinkin' that he can't trust someone," Merle said. "Now—he trusts me with just about as much as he trusts anyone. I told him I was lookin' for you, Daryl. Told him I was lookin' for you an' your wife. Didn't have me no idea you was gonna show up here together, but...I was figurin' that if I found you, an' she weren't dead? There was a good damn chance you was gonna be draggin' her ass along with you 'cause you been set on her for as long as you knowed her."

Daryl looked at Carol and then glared at Merle with a frown on his face.

"What in the hell would make you say a thing like that?" Daryl asked.

Merle laughed to himself. Daryl's little woman was watching him. He was embarrassed to get called out on eyeballing her ass and practically laying claim to her in his little imaginary land.

"You might be pissed, boy, that I spilled the beans on way back when she was just your damn imaginary girlfriend—a pretty face for your damn hand—but you best watchaself. She's here an' I weren't wrong, was I? You tellin' me your married, ain't you?"

Daryl looked back at Carol. Her cheeks had run red, but she was still somewhat smiling.

"I gotta apologize for my brother," Daryl said.

"No, you don't," Carol said. "It's—OK."

"Damn right it's OK," Merle offered. "Listen...point is I told him you was married an' you married. Just ain't no damn reason to say no different, you hear me?"

"Is he dangerous?" Carol asked.

"Everybody's fuckin' dangerous these days, Mouse," Merle said. "Knowin' my brother? I imagine you among them ranks."

"Only if I have to be," Carol said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"I like her," he informed Daryl. "An' that's what they all say. Ain't nobody dangerous unless they gotta be. It's just the point where we draw our "gottas" that's different. So you married an' there ain't no need in sayin' shit else about it. You married, you been married, an' that's all they is to it."

"We got it," Daryl said.

"Yeah well, answer the rest of my damn questions so I can say I asked 'em and we can get on outta here. I got a whole lot more to tell you. Both of you," Merle said.

"Go ahead," Carol pressed.

"Where you come from?" Merle asked.

"You know where the hell I come from," Daryl said.

"Since I seen your ass last, Derlina," Merle said. "Keep up."

"The rock quarry," Carol said. "The CDC. Hershel's farm. Then—we've mostly been wandering around. We've been from one place to another. We've mostly stuck to farmhouses, but we've stayed in a few barns here or there. There were a few stores, too, that we camped in."

Merle nodded his head.

"You alone?" He asked.

"Just the two of us," Carol said, clearly deciding she was taking over to get this done as quickly as possible.

"When's the last time you seen another soul?" Merle asked.

"Seen some guys in a store one time," Daryl said. "Ain't talked to 'em. We seen they was there, didn't want no trouble, an' moved on."

"The last people we saw that we knew were back on Hershel's farm," Carol said. "I think—the last person I saw was...maybe Andrea?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"Did'ja now? How the hell is ole sugar tits?" Merle asked.

Daryl shrugged.

"Dead as far as we know," Daryl said. "Or alive. But—not with us. Not since the farm."

Merle nodded.

"Officer Friendly?" He asked.

"Same," Carol said. "We were on a farm. The whole place got overrun with Walkers and everyone got split up. I stayed with Daryl. We don't know what happened to everyone else."

"Bein' honest?" Daryl offered. "Everything went to shit on the farm. We got left behind but we found the group. Andrea got left. We went back to get her, but I reckon she either run off, got killed an' walked off, or she burned up to nothin' we could recognize. We didn't go lookin' for the rest of 'em after that 'cause they was just cuttin' people loose too easy. We lost the little girl, too."

Merle's stomach knotted up suddenly.

He wanted to take them to Sophia, and he would, but he knew already what that meant. Sophia would have her mother. Technically, she'd have a good father in Daryl because the boy would piss his pants over the thought of having a fully made family for himself. Merle would become Sophia's uncle—just like he said he was. But, in a lot of ways, he'd probably lose her. She'd think of him as Uncle Merle, just like she did now, but she wouldn't need him.

Soon, she wouldn't need him at all. And Merle had begun to really like being needed.

"Little girl?" Merle asked, his throat dry.

"My daughter," Carol said.

"Lost her?" Merle asked.

"Walkers got after her," Daryl said. "Rick went to get her but he come back without her. Left her ass in the woods. We damn near walked our feet off lookin' for her but..."

Merle glanced at Carol. She dropped her eyes to the table a moment and studied the false woodgrain. She looked back at Merle.

"We couldn't find her," Carol said. She sucked in a breath and Merle thought he heard a catch behind it.

Merle nodded.

"Last question," Merle said. "What'd you come here for?"

"Didn't know you was here," Daryl said. "Come here—lookin' for a future."

"We came looking for a future," Carol said. "And—a life. One that we could live together."

"A real one," Daryl offered. "Like—like we ain't never had before."

Merle heard something in his brother's voice and he realized that the "we" that Daryl referred to had many possible meanings. It could be that he was looking for a life like he'd never shared with Carol before, or it could be that he was looking for a life like the one that he and Merle never had. The truth was, they were likely one and the same.

Carol sucked in a breath and let it out with a loud exhale.

"Did we pass the test?" She asked.

Merle laughed to himself, swallowing against the complaints of his stomach, and nodded his head.

"Yeah," he said. "You did. And boy, oh boy...do I got a prize for you. Come with me. I'll take you to my place to get'cha cleaned up. You ain't the only ones done gone an' built yourselves a new kinda life." Figure out what'cha wanna do. Got some—got somebody I want'cha to meet. An' somebody I want'cha to see."


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here. More to come.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"I can smell supper cookin'," Merle said as he stepped up onto the landing and started down the hallway to the three bedroom family unit that they called home.

"Who the hell's cookin' you supper?" Daryl asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Told you that you ain't the only one seen some changes to your life, lil' brotha," Merle responded. He turned the knob to the front door and let himself inside. The entrance to their apartment was small, and Merle wasn't sure exactly how the whole surprise would unfold. He stepped in, letting Carol and Daryl come after him, without saying anything. As soon as he closed the door behind him, and the door made the familiar thudding noise of closing that was caused by the fact that the wood had swollen and warped probably years ago and the door didn't quite fit perfectly in its spot, he heard the thundering of feet and he smiled to himself.

He stepped forward quickly, leaving Carol and Daryl behind him for just a second.

"You're home!" Sophia squealed. She was in Merle's arms, as she always was when he got home, and he'd lifted her off the ground in the same way he always did before she even noticed that he wasn't alone. He felt her practically go limp in his arms and, if it weren't for the weight of her, he might not have even known she was there for a moment.

Sophia stared at Carol and Daryl and they stared back at her. For a second it was clear that nobody present could quite comprehend what they were seeing or what was happening.

It was Carol who broke the spell first.

"Sophia?" She asked, clearly not believing her eyes. "Sophia?" She repeated, stepping forward.

Carol's words were enough to break things for Sophia and the girl cried out for her mother. Merle leaned and let her go when she swung her body in her mother's direction. She was clearly heavier than her mother expected, or maybe heavier than she remembered, and Carol's body lurched forward with the transfer of her daughter's weight. It didn't matter, though. Not to her. For a moment, Carol launched into a chain of words expressing her disbelief and her happiness over seeing her daughter again.

It was only then that Merle looked away from them and looked at Daryl who was still staring with some shock on his features.

Merle smiled at him.

"Found her just wanderin' around on her own," Merle said. "After Rick cut her loose. Didn't know where the hell you were, so I couldn't just leave her ass there. Brung her with me."

"She's been with you this whole damn time?" Daryl asked.

Merle shrugged his shoulders.

"Long enough," Merle said.

"Sophia—sweetheart—you've been with...Merle?" Carol asked.

Merle glanced at Sophia. She looked at him, her face tear-streaked. She nodded at her mother.

"He's been taking care of me, Mama," Sophia said. "I've been living with him and Sadie."

Carol looked at Merle then.

"You took care of her?" Carol asked.

Merle swallowed. His throat hurt and he didn't much want to respond to any of the questions that her eyes were asking him. He nodded his head.

"She's my niece," he said. "Family's family. Soph? Take 'em in the livin' room? Y'all go have a sit down. I gotta make a call. Let Sadie know—we got people for supper."

"Who the hell is Sadie, Merle?" Daryl asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"You gonna know," Merle said. "You surprised?"

"I couldn't be...I don't think I could be more surprised," Carol offered. "I don't know...I don't even know what to say. I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't," Merle said. "Just go sit your asses down. I'll be in the livin' room soon. And I got me a pretty good damn feelin' that you about to be even more surprised."

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Daryl was just about bouncing in his seat when Sadie reached her hand out to him. He hopped up to his feet like he was wearing springs and offered a hand out to her. He stammered out a greeting to her and said something to her about Merle being an asshole, but Sadie missed it all the way around because Daryl didn't have a damn clue about her or how it was best to talk to her.

Sadie smiled at him, though, despite the look of confusion on her face and she offered a hand to Carol. Carol greeted her and thanked her for caring for Sophia and, upon understanding that, Sadie finally offered some words.

"Sophia is wonderful," Sadie said. "I—I love her. But I'm happy she found you. I'm happy Merle found you. I know you must be happy too."

"You have no idea," Carol said. "I thought I'd never see her again. I can't even explain how I feel right now and—I don't know if you could imagine."

Merle put his hand on Sadie's shoulder and squeezed it. In response, realizing he was behind her, she reached her hand up and covered his hand before she smiled at him. Looking at her, to be sure that she followed along with him, Merle responded to Carol.

"Sadie would understand," Merle offered. "Lost her own kids. All five of 'em. But—she knows they ain't comin' back."

Sadie nodded at him and offered him a soft smile to say it was fine that he was telling her business to his brother and, apparently, his newly-minted sister-in-law, even if he was the only one in the room at the moment that knew that they considered themselves to be married.

Merle didn't get a chance to say anything else before he heard a knock at the door. He jumped, not expecting the sound so soon, and Sadie raised an eyebrow at him.

"Door," Merle said. "Can you get it?"

Sadie nodded and excused herself with something of a wave. Merle scanned his eyes over his guests. Carol was holding tight to Sophia. Sophia was grinning ear to ear with the return of her mother. Daryl was caught up in something like shock and confusion that hadn't faded yet and might not fade for a while.

"Somethin'—Merle, somethin' wrong with your...uh...your girlfriend?" Daryl asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"No," he said. "Ain't a damn thing wrong with her. She can't hear a damn thing, but—it don't really mean nothin'. She don't seem to know it's missin' most the time. Just—you gotta talk right at her. Otherwise, she just don't know what the hell you sayin' an' she lets it go."

"I can talk to her!" Sophia said quickly, sitting up from her semi-reclined position to look at Carol and Daryl. "I can! She can speak a language with her fingers and I can speak a bunch of it now. We can talk about just about anything. I'll show you when she gets back in here."

"We'll show 'em a lil' later," Merle said. "I hear somebody comin', Soph. Why don't'cha go wash your hands for supper?"

Sophia got off the couch and trotted off to wash her hands. Just as she darted out the room, Sadie came back in the room leading their guests. Merle saw the moment that the shock registered again for Carol and Daryl both.

Carol ran for Andrea at the same time that Andrea ran for her and the two of them wrapped their arms around each other.

"I didn't know if you made it!" Andrea declared.

"We thought you were dead!" Carol said. "I thought I saw you go down!"

"I got away," Andrea said.

"We came back for you," Carol said. "When everyone moved on—we came back for you. But you were gone."

Andrea broke away from Carol and offered a hug to Daryl which he quickly and warmly accepted.

"Good to see you alive," Daryl said. "Thought for sure you was a goner."

"I thought I was, too," Andrea said. "I thought I was going to die but then I ran into Michonne. You don't know Michonne. Michonne this is..."

"Carol and Daryl, am I right?" Michonne asked.

She offered a hand in greeting to each of them and they accepted.

"I don't understand," Daryl said. "What the hell's been goin' on here?"

"Found Andrea here about dead to an infection," Merle said. "Doc brought her back from death, though. She an' her—her friend live here now."

"I ran into Michonne after I left the farm," Andrea said. "Everyone left and I had to run. The Walkers were everywhere."

"We come back," Daryl said. "Everybody wanted to move on, but we come back. Let 'em go. Couldn't find you so we had to move on too."

"We were still looking for Sophia," Carol said.

"You found me!" Sophia declared, running back through from the bathroom. She darted past everyone to wrap her arms around her mother. "And now we're all gonna stay together forever."

Carol opened her mouth, clearly unsure of what to say.

"We got the room for now," Merle said. "This is a family unit an' we got more'n enough space." He cleared his throat. "Sadie an' me don't use the separate rooms. There's plenty of space here."

"Sure," Carol said. "I mean—for now we can..."

"We don't have to decide on forever tonight, Mouse," Merle offered, interrupting her. "Just sayin' you got somewhere for tonight an' tomorrow we'll figure shit out. What'cha need tonight is a good meal, a good shower, an' a bed. We got all that to spare."

"I gotta agree," Daryl said. "All them things sound good to me. I don't know right now if I could find my way anywhere else. I'm damn near turned around. Who the hell else you got here? Anyone else we know?"

Merle shook his head.

"Far as stayin'? This is it," Merle said. "Plenty more to say about that, but tonight ain't the time to say it. I don't wanna just stand around runnin' my mouth while my damn supper gets cold."

He gestured toward the small dining table and everyone crowded around. Andrea went, as she had the last time she'd eaten with them, and helped bring food to the table with Sadie. Carol offered her services but, as a new arrival there, she was waved away.

When they'd all settled to eat, just like some kind of mix-matched family, Merle looked around the table.

He couldn't quite believe it himself, even though he was the only one who knew everyone that would be there. They all sat together like they were just happily coming back together after a long year apart. They exchanged stories of what had happened since they'd last see each other for those who were reunited. They handed out small pieces of themselves to the people they'd never met before. Sophia demonstrated her skills at speaking Sadie's language and forced everyone at the table to mimic her in a few simple signs that even Merle had learned—signs to make Sadie feel welcome and appreciated. Signs to thank her for the food that she'd prepared. And Sadie thanked them all, just as simply, for eating the food and being her guests.

Merle had never—not once in his whole sorry ass life—had a big Christmas dinner. He'd seen them on movies. He'd heard people talk about them. They talked about family coming together—flying in and driving in and crawling in from all around—and spending that one special meal together. They talked about the warm feelings it brought to their bellies to be surrounded by laughter and stories and loved ones lost for the year. But Merle had never once had a big Christmas dinner because he never had the family necessary to build it.

It wasn't Christmas, even though there was a slight chill of the coming fall outside, but Merle felt like it almost could be.

And even though most of the people there weren't any blood to him, he felt oddly like he was among family.

They were the outcasts. They were the loose ends. They were the lost boys. Every last one of them had ended up severed from some whole that they used to know.

And now they were knitting it all back together. They hadn't gone together to begin with, but now they were knitting something together.

They were becoming something.

And even if Merle wasn't sure what the something was, and even if he wasn't sure that they'd ever really know what the hell to call it, for one meal he was happy to have it.

So when Sophia told her joke about the two giraffes for the third time, Merle made sure to laugh the loudest. And when he finished his meal, he made sure to thank Sadie two or three times for her efforts. And when he noticed his brother's hand creeping over to catch the hand of the woman he called his wife—all smiles like Merle had never seen her before in his life—in his, Merle had winked at him and laughed to himself at the half-embarrassed smile that crept across his brother's face because he knew that Daryl felt it too.

They had found something, and that something felt a lot like family, in the damnedest of places.


	19. Chapter 19

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here. More to come.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"You mean like—he's my Daddy?" Sophia asked.

Carol chewed on the question a moment. She hadn't considered how to answer it and she hadn't asked Daryl—who was waiting just outside the little bedroom door—about his feelings on the matter.

"It's like that," Carol offered finally.

"It's a lot like that," Daryl said from outside the door.

Carol laughed to herself at the surprised expression on Sophia's face.

"Did I forget to tell you that he was waiting outside for me to have the chance to talk to you?" Carol asked. "Daryl? Come on in?"

"Sorry," Daryl offered, stepping into the bedroom that he'd share with Carol.

Carol thought it was best, before she simply started sleeping in the same bedroom with Daryl, where Sophia was more than likely to venture in the middle of the night since she was overcome with excitement that evening, that she explain to Sophia the relationship that the two of them had formed over the time that they'd been separated from everyone else. So far, she hadn't gotten too far in the explanation, but it seemed like Sophia didn't need too much explanation. After all, Merle and Sadie lived together because they cared about each other. Andrea and Michonne lived together because they cared about each other.

Sophia wasn't bothered by any of it. People being together because they loved each other, in fact, seemed just about right to Sophia. Carol assumed that, maybe, she'd seen too much of people being together in other situations before.

Love was something, no matter its form, that it seemed Sophia was able to understand and support.

Carol patted the bed where she was sitting with Sophia.

"Come sit, Daryl," Carol said.

"You married Mama?" Sophia asked.

Daryl laughed to himself and looked at Carol. She nodded her head at him, sure that he was wondering whether or not he was supposed to say that to Sophia.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Yeah—I guess I did. As official as it can be now. Sorry we didn't wait until we knew where you were."

Sophia squirmed around to get to her knees. Carol was pretty sure that they were never getting her to bed. She was too energetic. She'd been wide open since they'd gotten there and she was practically bubbling over with excess energy. Carol couldn't recall the last time she'd seen her daughter so full of energy and enthusiasm.

"It's OK," Sophia said. "You didn't know where I was because I went with Merle. But—does that make you my Daddy?"

Daryl swallowed. He looked at Carol and back at Sophia.

"I guess that depends on you," Daryl said. "Depends on—what'cha want me to be, Sophia. I know you had an old man."

Sophia frowned at him and picked up the doll that she'd brought with her—her favorite that she'd wanted to show Carol again since Carol hadn't paid enough attention to the doll when she'd toured Sophia's bedroom earlier.

"That means you don't want to be?" Sophia asked. "I could try to be a good kid. Uncle Merle says I'm a good kid."

"Ain't like that," Daryl said quickly. "That weren't what I meant. Just meant—I don't want'cha to feel like you don't got no choice in the matter. Don't want'cha to feel like—I'm just comin' in here tellin' you this is how it's gotta be an' this is how you gotta feel."

"What do you want, Sophia?" Carol asked, stepping in to try to mediate. "Would you like it if—Daryl was your Daddy?"

Sophia eyed Daryl. Carol pleaded with him with her eyes to relax his expression. He must have been able to read her mind or else he figured out that he was tense and showing it in his face. He did relax his expression.

"That what'cha want?" Daryl asked.

"Is that what you want?" Sophia asked.

Daryl laughed to himself and Carol couldn't help but laugh too. She rubbed her hand over Sophia's hair and down to her shoulder. She kneaded her daughter's shoulder.

"I think it's what you both want," Carol said softly. "But I think that neither of you are—maybe brave enough to tell the other one yet?"

Sophia nodded her head at Carol. Carol looked to Daryl.

"I'd like it," Daryl said. "If it's what you want? I'd like it. Just—wanna do whatever makes you happy, Sophia. You and your Ma. Just wanna do whatever makes you happy."

Sophia smiled sincerely then.

"You want to make us both happy?" Sophia asked.

Daryl nodded.

"And he already makes me very happy," Carol offered. "So happy, Sophia—that you wouldn't even believe it. I love him—very much."

Sophia looked pleased with Carol's confession. Daryl looked a little embarrassed to hear it spoken out loud when her declarations of love were something that Carol had kept only for Daryl's ears until now.

"Do you love Mama?" Sophia asked.

Daryl nodded his head.

"More'n I ever loved anyone," Daryl said.

"Do you love me?" Sophia asked.

"I think so," Daryl said. "But—I bet I'm gonna...more and more. We get to know each other a little better an' all."

Sophia looked satisfied enough with Daryl's response.

"Then I'll love you more, too," Sophia informed him. She furrowed her brow and looked back at Carol. "Does Merle know you're married?"

Carol laughed to herself.

"He does," Carol said. "And—I imagine that Sadie knows it by now too. They've had enough time to talk. You know—Daryl looked for you, Sophia. We really wanted to find you. Sweetheart, I don't want you to think that we didn't look for you."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," Sophia said with a frown.

"You don't gotta be sorry," Daryl said. "You was OK and that's all that matters."

Sophia nodded her head.

"I was OK," she said. "I was scared before Merle found me, but I was OK when he found me. I wanted it to be Mama that found me, but when it was Merle I had to go with him. It was a lot better than staying out there. He made sure I didn't have to be scared of the Walkers. He never even let them get close to me except the one time when he let me kill some."

"Merle let you kill Walkers?" Daryl asked quickly. Carol caught the look of panic on his face. She probably should have felt as panicked as he looked, but oddly she didn't feel that way. Sophia was fine. In fact, Carol could say that she seemed a lot better than she ever had before. Merle clearly hadn't done a great deal to put her in harm's way.

"I did good, too," Sophia said. "They didn't have teeth, though. They were in a pen so I was killing them through the wires. Merle said they were left over from something that they had to do with them. He showed me how to put the knife in the right place so I could get it back out without it getting too stuck."

Carol did her best not to grimace. She put on a smile for Sophia's sake because her daughter was clearly proud of her accomplishment.

"That's very brave, sweetheart," Carol said.

"You gotta be brave," Sophia pointed out. "That's how you live in this world. That's what Merle says."

Daryl was chewing at his cuticle.

"Merle ain't treated you bad, though?" Daryl asked.

Sophia looked at him like she couldn't understand the question and Carol almost laughed to herself. All Carol needed to do was to look at Sophia when the girl looked at Merle and she could tell that the man hadn't treated her daughter badly. If anything, Sophia looked at Merle like he was some kind of redneck fairy Godfather.

Sophia had grown up with Ed and Carol hadn't been able to protect her daughter from knowing the kind of man that her father was.

Ed would punish Sophia for being too loud. Or, at the very least, he would punish Carol for what he considered to be Sophia's transgressions so that Sophia would be at least a little aware that what she did would come back on Carol if Carol tried to block him from punishing Sophia. Merle practically applauded Sophia's antics and egged her on to keep her talking to him when she'd grow quiet or interested in something else. Ed had insisted that Sophia wanted too much and was spoiled. Merle had given her a bedroom that held a decent amount of games and books and dolls. Sophia had feared Ed and often did her best to try to pretend that he didn't exist. Carol had seen Sophia's walls and the crayon drawings tacked there all included Merle drawn as a smiling figure of about four times Sophia's size.

Ed Peletier had treated Sophia badly. Merle Dixon clearly never had.

"I think Sophia's fine, Daryl," Carol offered. "Sophia—you've had a good time with Merle?"

Sophia nodded her head at Carol. Her smile renewed.

"He's a really good uncle," Sophia offered.

"You know he's your uncle for real now, don't you?" Carol said.

Sophia's eyes went a little wide with the information. Carol smiled at her and nodded her head.

"Like he's really my uncle?" Sophia asked.

"He's Daryl's brother. So—when we got married? And Daryl became your—he became your Daddy? That made Merle really your uncle," Carol said.

Sophia changed her position again, practically looking ready to leap from the bed.

"Does Merle know?" Sophia asked.

Carol laughed to herself.

"I think he's probably figured it out," Carol said.

Sophia scrambled off the bed quickly.

"I gotta go tell him!" Sophia said. "I gotta make sure he really does know!"

Carol grabbed for her daughter, but Sophia was much faster than she was. Without any trepidation at all, Sophia ran right out of the bedroom and knocked on the door to the bedroom across the small hallway twice before she simply opened the door.

"You might wanna heads up!" Daryl called out quickly.

Whether or not Merle needed a heads up, Sophia was already in the bedroom. Carol got off the bed and walked to the doorway of Merle and Sadie's room to see what might happen. Merle and Sadie were in bed, but luckily it didn't look as though Sophia had disturbed anything too serious. They both appeared to be at least somewhat clothed under their blankets.

By the time Carol made it to the doorway, Sophia and her doll were already in the bed between them and she was almost frantically informing Merle of everything that was going on. Merle listened to her, brow furrowed, while Sadie simply sat and watched the scene.

"And that makes you my uncle for real!" Sophia excitedly declared as she reached the end of her tale.

Merle laughed to himself.

"So it do, Soph," Merle said. "So it do..."

Sophia grabbed Sadie's face and Carol held onto the doorframe.

"Does that mean you're my aunt?" Sophia asked.

"Sophia? Don't grab people's faces, sweetheart," Carol said, catching Sophia's attention.

"It's OK, Mouse," Merle said with a laugh. "They do this all the time. If Sadie cared, I reckon she'da said somethin' by now. She don't bite her tongue. It's how the hell Sophia tells her somethin' is real important."

Sadie's response to Sophia didn't come in the form of words, though. At least it wasn't in verbal words that Carol could understand. Sophia understood well enough what Sadie said, though, and she must have liked the response because she wrapped her arms around the woman and toppled her backward into the pillow behind her.

"I'm sorry," Carol said. "She's got a lot of energy tonight. It's a lot of news and—I shouldn't have let her come in here."

"Kid's got spunk," Merle offered, peeling Sophia off of Sadie and making her laugh when he practically threw her backward on the bed across his legs. "Soph—go get that book. You tryin' to make me sleep without knowin' if that was a ghost in the attic that them kids heard an' that shit ain't fair. You know we got a lot ridin' on this."

Sophia rolled off the bed and took off with the same energy that she'd used to travel from one room to the other. She pushed past Carol and out the door, calling back to Carol that they should sit down and listen to the chapter they were going to read because it was a good story.

Carol watched Sophia go and shook her head.

"I'm sorry—she's really not usually this...wild," Carol offered.

She felt Daryl come up behind her and rest his hand on her shoulder. Carol reached her hand up to cover his and he squeezed her shoulder.

Merle frowned at her from the bed.

"You too much in the practice of apologizin', Mouse," Merle said. "Kid ain't doin' nothin' but bein' a kid. Good kid. Gotta get all that energy out to sleep good. That's all the hell it is."

Carol looked at Daryl and Daryl nodded his head at her.

"She's hyper," Carol said, keeping her voice as quiet as she could.

"Lot to take in," Daryl said. "Biggest night she's had in a while."

"It doesn't scare you off?" Carol asked, feeling a strange sensation of relief in her chest.

Daryl laughed to himself.

"I like seein' it," he said. "Can't nothin' scare me off. If it could? Sure wouldn't be no kid bein' a damn kid."

Sophia came running back through with her doll and a book, her speed not having change much since she'd darted through the doorway before.

"What you don't know is that Duncan and Sandy moved into this house with their parents and every night they're hearing something in the attic and they're going up there to see what it is and Merle says it might be a ghost because ghosts can be real because we would've said that Walkers weren't real, but they're real and so ghosts could be real and that might be what's in the attic," Sophia announced. She laughed, obviously thrilled with the thought. "But Sadie says it's a rat and if she's right then Merle's gotta make dinner."

"What's Merle get if he's right?" Daryl asked, a smile coming over his face as he listened to Sophia's story.

"He didn't say," Sophia said. She went for Merle's side of the bed and crawled up. "What do you get, Merle?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"Don't'cha worry about it," Merle said. "That's between me an' Sadie. She knows the terms of the bet. Now come up here. Settle down. Get where Sadie can see it good."

"Mama!" Sophia called, getting in between Sadie and Merle. "Come on! You're gonna miss it!"

"I think we'll sit it out this time," Carol offered.

"They wanna sit it out," Merle said to Sadie when she tapped his shoulder and made a face at him.

Sadie shook her head and waved at the two of them.

"It's tradition," she said. "We read together. A family. Come on. It's family time."

She patted the bed and Carol looked at Daryl. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I like a good story," he offered. "And it might be fun to get our own wagers goin' on the bet."

"I just can't wait to see what you'd want," Carol said with a laugh.

"I'm votin' for the ghost," Daryl said. "You can have the rat. And I promise—whatever I choose? You gonna like losin' as much as you'd like winnin'."

Carol sat on the bed at Sadie's feet and Daryl sat somewhat beside her with his arm on her shoulder. Carol watched her daughter, her happiness evidenced on her face, as she settled down and finally began to relax. With the book in Sophia's lap, Merle started to read the story aloud while Sadie entertained Sophia by reading the story to the girl with her fingers and facial expressions.

Carol sighed, suddenly feeling quite relaxed and tired herself, and leaned her face against Daryl's arm.

She hadn't expected this—none of it—but this was her family now. And, oddly enough, Carol couldn't imagine being any happier than she felt at that moment.


	20. Chapter 20

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **Did you miss me? I'm sorry. Real life can sometimes really get in the way of things. Please bear with me as I'm getting back into the swing of writing things.**

 **I hope you enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!**

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Carol woke up abruptly to the banging on the door and for a moment she had to remember where she was and how she got there. She instinctively leaned over and shook Daryl awake.

"Do you hear that?" She asked.

Daryl sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

"Would be damn hard not to," he responded. "The hell is that?"

"I think it's knocking," Carol said.

Daryl seemed to wake, then, because he got to his feet and immediately started scurrying around in the darkness in search of his discarded clothes.

"Ain't knockin'," Daryl said. "Not like that. That's beatin' on the damn door."

The firecracker pops that Carol heard coming from outside shocked her. She felt her whole body jump at the sound and then she felt the slow and cold realization seeping into her that they weren't firecrackers. The beating on the door intensified and from outside their room she heard Merle yell something about "coming" and she heard the bumping around of movement in the small hallway of the apartment.

Carol jumped up and immediately switched on the lamp that made it easier for she and Daryl both to quickly dress.

"Those were gunshots," Carol said.

"Damn sure were," Daryl responded, headed for the door with his boots in his hand.

"What's going on?" Carol asked, ashamed that they'd possibly slept through something they should have been awake for.

"You know as much as I do," Daryl said. "But I got a feelin' Merle knows more."

As soon as Daryl opened the door to the bedroom, there was a bit of confusion as he collided with Sadie in the hallway. She let out a noise of surprise and Daryl apologized. He asked her what was happening, but she either missed the question or didn't know how to answer it because no response came. Carol came out immediately behind Daryl and headed straight for Sophia's room—apparently the same place Sadie was going—but she never made it there because Sophia met them both as she came out of her room with the same questions they all had about what was taking place at such an hour.

"It's OK, sweetheart," Carol lied, not knowing what else to tell Sophia at the moment. She wrapped her arms around her and held her daughter to her. Daryl went quickly toward the door where his brother had already exited the apartment, and Carol could hear voices coming from the hallway. She looked to Sadie who was staring off in the distance. Carol pulled Sophia with her and turned on the light, bathing the little living room in the glow of the electric bulbs. She crossed back over to Sadie and touched the woman's arm to get her attention. Sadie jumped and Carol quickly apologized for startling her. Sadie smiled at her nervously and shook her head.

"Don't worry," Sadie said. "What's—what's happening?"

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know," Carol said. The firecracker noises were gone from outside, but she could still hear muffled speech in the hallway. "They're talking. I can't tell what they're saying."

Sadie sighed.

"Merle is the Governor's right hand," Sadie said. She laughed to herself. "Or his left hand."

Carol nodded her head.

"You think it's serious?" Carol asked.

"Mama?" Sophia asked, tugging at Carol. "Is everything OK?"

Carol hugged her daughter to her, remembering that the girl was there and likely to be as afraid, if not more afraid, than any of them were. She was going to react, too, just the way that they reacted. They decided how much anxiety Sophia would feel over the situation.

"Everything's fine," Carol said. "I'm sure it's fine. We just don't know what they're talking about right now."

"I heard gunshots," Sophia offered.

"Probably Walkers," Carol said. "There might have been some Walkers."

Carol looked to Sadie and begged the woman for some kind of help. It was clear that Sadie knew nothing more about what was taking place than Carol did, though. She wore just as much evidence of sleep on her face as Carol did. She smiled quickly, though, and reached a hand out to touch Sophia's cheek.

"Let's make some tea," Sadie said. "OK? Something to drink? We'll wait for Merle."

Sophia glanced up at Carol like she was seeking permission to accept the woman's invitation. Carol, honestly, didn't know how often these kinds of things happened in Woodbury. She didn't know how many nights her daughter and Sadie had spent drinking tea for distraction and waiting to know what was happening around them. Carol nodded her head at Sophia, brushed her hand over her daughter's hair, and offered her a smile.

"Tea sounds great," Carol said. "I'll help you both."

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Daryl invited himself to go along with his brother. He couldn't understand much of what was going on and he wasn't sure if that was because he was tired and hadn't fully awakened from the deep sleep he'd been in, or if it was because the men were almost speaking in some kind of code. Clearly Merle and the man who had been sent to get him had much more information about Woodbury and what might be happening than Daryl did. They didn't even need sentences to communicate.

Daryl followed the two of them out of the apartment buildings and down a sidewalk. Outside, there were some people walking around, and there were others who were ushering those people to return to their homes and stay inside. There was no indication, though, of what might be going on or what might have stirred everyone up in the first place.

Daryl didn't ask any questions. Instead he kept his eyes and ears open and finally followed Merle and the man he was walking with as they ducked into another building, descended a flight of stairs to a basement, and entered a room where quite a few other people were gathered together. Daryl took a chair beside Merle and turned his attention to the man who called himself the Governor—the man who ran the whole town.

Once a few more people had come in, the Governor finally addressed the whole of them.

"I'm sorry to have to wake you all tonight," the Governor said. "I'm sure that some of you heard the disturbance. If you look around, you'll see that some of our people aren't here tonight. They're busy doing other things. They're keeping the people of Woodbury safe. Your families. Friends. Neighbors. Some of them have been dispatched to handle the problem outside of the walls. Others are on guard. Some of them, unfortunately, are helping to deliver the news of casualties that we have suffered tonight as the result of an attack. I thank everyone for coming on such short notice and for moving so quickly. Without everyone's cooperation, we wouldn't be able to keep the peace in our community. We need to work on getting here even faster, though, in the case of these surprise emergencies."

"For those of us not on duty," someone near the front of the room said, "what happened tonight?"

"It's difficult to tell," the Governor said. "We know there was an attack. We've lost four of our people. Two on the wall and two who were doing night rotation. Gunshots. At this time? What we do know is that it was a neighboring group that committed the attack. We know they're located in the prison nearby. We know that they came to Woodbury tonight and they killed four of our citizens. What we don't know is _why_."

Daryl noticed his brother shift in his chair, but Merle didn't say anything.

"What are we going to do?" Someone else asked. "If they came before, they'll come again."

"You can rest assured that we're going to do everything we can to avoid another attack on the community," the Governor said. "I've already sent a small group out to comb the area and to protect against another attack reaching our walls. There isn't much that we can do before sunrise without compromising the safety of our men and women. When we break up here? I'll take my council with me and we'll discuss a plan. We'll discuss strategy. We'll discuss how we move forward. At sunrise, I'll hold a meeting. You're all invited to come. You can bring your families. We'll discuss how we're going to handle the situation moving forward and how we're going to handle those who came in and callously killed our people."

"We kill them," someone offered.

"We'd rather it not come down to bloodshed," the Governor said. "My team and I will discuss it, though. We'll search out other options. Other avenues. If we can avoid a fight that costs innocent lives, we'll do so. That's my promise. I don't want to see any good people die. Not here and not anywhere else. We'll do what we have to do, though, to keep our people safe. You have my word on that. I thank you all for coming. I want you all to go back to your homes. Back to your families. I want you to rest and get ready for tomorrow. We don't know what it holds. I want you to spread the news that we'll meet in the center of town at sunrise to discuss the situation with everyone."

There was a hum of voices as everyone addressed everyone else. They talked among themselves and Daryl couldn't make out much more than the low and incessant mumble of too many words coming at once. The Governor let the discussion go on for a moment before he cleared his throat and raised his hand, getting everyone's attention once more.

"I know you're concerned. I understand that. I appreciate the offer of several of you to stand guard tonight and I'll take you up on that offer," the Governor said. "But we're doing all we can for the moment. Until the sun comes up we're just protecting ourselves against further attack. There's no need in firing bullets into the darkness. I'm dismissing you all, but I'd like my council to come with me to my private chambers so we can discuss how Woodbury moves forward in light of the threats surrounding us at the present moment."

The Governor excused himself then. Daryl stayed seated in his chair even when the majority of the people stood up and moved around.

"You can go home now, brother," Merle offered. "I gotta go talk to the Governor."

"I'm coming with you," Daryl said.

Merle frowned at him.

"Go home," Merle said. "Make sure everybody's OK there. Tell 'em they don't gotta worry."

"People's comin' in attackin' the place, Merle," Daryl responded. "They got a lotta shit to worry about."

"Just go home, Daryl," Merle said. "Pete over there. He'll show you back if you can't remember where it is. We 110 B. Just go on back there 'cause I told you that's what the hell you gotta do."

Daryl started to argue with Merle, but he could see something in his brother's expression that begged him not to. Daryl swallowed and nodded at his brother.

"Yeah," he said. "I'ma head on back. Make sure they OK. Ain't too worried. You come on back—soon as you can?"

Merle stood up and worked his way out of the collection of chairs. He nodded at Daryl.

"Soon as I can," Merle said. "Pete? You help my lil' brother here? Just got in yesterday. Don't know his way around town that good yet. Get him back to my place?"

The man referred to as "Pete" nodded at Merle and extended a hand to Daryl to shake. He offered his name, which Daryl already knew, and Daryl gave his in return. Daryl stood up and followed the man. They backtracked their way out of the basement room, up the stairs, and out the door into the street. Daryl stopped a moment and watched as his brother disappeared, headed in a direction where very few men were going.

When Daryl felt Pete tug at his arm, he followed the man back down the sidewalk, going with the flow of traffic as people spilled out of the building, and he returned to the apartment that they were calling "home", for as long as they could, to calm the worries that were growing there and to wait on his brother to bring them more information about what might be happening in their new home town of Woodbury.


	21. Chapter 21

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Nearly the entire town of Woodbury had showed up to hear the Governor's speech about the attack and their plans moving forward. The Governor had given a good speech that had gotten everybody riled up. He was good at that. He was good at getting the people to see things his way. They never knew the whole truth, after all, to see it any other way than the way that he chose to paint it.

Not even Merle knew the whole truth.

But what he did know bothered him a little.

The whole of Merle's makeshift family gathered at his apartment after the town meeting and entertained themselves with the weak tea that Sadie made to keep them busy and give them something to focus some of their energy on. Even Merle, who had no taste at all for hot tea, used the beverage to wash down his cigarettes and worries.

"War," Daryl mused. "A fight against people we don't even know because they can't mind their business enough to leave us alone. Fuckin' hell—come here lookin' for peace and less than twenty four hours after we get here? We're goin' to war."

"We know these assholes," Merle said. He glanced around the table. He had the undivided attention of everyone there. Merle licked his lips. "Officer Friendly an' his gang a' Merry Men. Don't know how damn many of 'em there are, exactly. Seems he might be pickin' people up while he's cuttin' others loose."

"Rick?" Carol asked.

Merle nodded his head.

"Then why don't we just go and talk to him?" Daryl asked. "Tell him we're here. Ask him to stop attacking Woodbury."

Merle laughed to himself.

"Things ain't always as simple as they seem, lil' brother," Merle mused. He raised his hand and pointed a finger at Sophia who was sitting at the coffee table nearby with her cookies and tea. She was pretending not to listen while she colored a picture, but Merle knew her well enough to know that she was all ears, all the time. "Soph—this don't leave this room, ya hear?"

Sophia looked at him, feigned surprise that he would assume she could hear him at all, and then nodded her head before she returned to her coloring. She was more than accustomed to being asked to keep Merle's secrets and, truthfully, she was better at keeping secrets than most of the grown people that Merle knew.

"Same goes for every damn one of you," Merle said. "Couple days ago we were out on a mission. People in the area an' we had to check it out. Come up on a couple people an' I recognized one of 'em. That Oriental kid from the rock quarry an' a woman he was with—the both of 'em was out raidin' a store nearby. Had to bring 'em back here. Honestly I was hopin' they'd know where you were, but...when I got 'em here it was the Governor who was most interested in the both of 'em."

"Glenn?" Andrea asked. "Is that who you brought back?"

"Don't remember his fuckin' name," Merle said sharply. "Oriental kid."

"He's Korean," Daryl said.

"Whatever," Merle said. "The Governor had a particular interest in them. Sent me in to do some—well—some _intense_ questioning."

Merle raised his eyes and scanned those at the table. He tried to give them all enough warning with his expression that he didn't want to discuss his role there with too much more detail, especially not in front of Sophia. Apparently they got the gist of his message, whether or not it came from his expression or his tone.

"Why haven't we seen Glenn?" Andrea asked. "Is he...?"

Merle shook his head, catching what she was throwing at him.

"He wanted to be let go. Woman that was with him, too. They was still part of Rick's group. That's why the Governor was so damn interested in 'em. Them that's got somewhere to go has a different look than them that's just roamin' around. If they got somewhere to go, the Governor's got an interest in 'em."

"Why?" Michonne asked.

"That ain't my place to ask," Merle said. "Yours neither—not if you know what's good for you."

"When Andrea and I first got here," Michonne said, "some people went out to meet another group. A military group. I went back to see the trucks and I noticed that there were bullet holes in the trucks—like someone fought back to keep them from taking the vehicles. Walkers don't shoot guns. Do you know anything about that, Merle?"

Merle glanced toward Sophia. She was watching them, but the moment that she noticed Merle looking at her, she redirected her attention back to her coloring.

"It'd be best for you if you don't know nothin' about it," Merle said. "You an' Andrea both—keep your mouths shut if you don't wanna wake up dead one mornin'."

"This guy bad news?" Daryl asked.

"Who ain't these days?" Merle asked. He caught Daryl's expression and laughed to himself. His brother wasn't interested in his attempts to dodge questions that it was really better not to ask. "Woodbury runs on collectin' every damn thing we can reach," Merle offered. "That means we got groups goin' out for miles around us pullin' in supplies. Everybody gathered together here means we know what we're usin', what we got, what they got to offer. You get the idea. Other groups that don't join up with Woodbury?"

Daryl nodded his head, his expression a little solemn. He rubbed at his eyes. They were, no doubt, tired. None of them had gotten a great deal of sleep.

"They're a drain on resources," Daryl said.

Merle hummed.

"Especially when they ain't contributing," Merle said.

"If it's dangerous," Michonne said, "then we should just move on. All of us together? We'd find somewhere safe."

"There's the thing," Merle said. "Anywhere Woodbury can reach? There really ain't nowhere safe."

"You're either with us, or you're against us," Andrea said.

Merle hummed.

"You're saying we can't leave?" Michonne asked.

"I'm sayin' Woodbury is a helluva lot like Hotel California," Merle said. "You catch my drift?"

"Wait," Carol said. "So—the Governor wants to go after Rick's group because they're draining supplies. Maybe because—because they have something to offer. Something he thinks that we might want or need."

Merle hummed in agreement, but he didn't bother confirming what she'd said with words. Instead, he reached for a cigarette that his brother had just lit so that his brother could go through the effort of lighting another. It was a much easier task, after all, with two hands.

"That would explain why the Governor would have some interest in Rick's group," Carol said. "But—it doesn't explain why Rick would come here."

"Because Rick's a hothead that runs into shit without thinkin'," Daryl offered.

"There's that," Merle said. "But—I don't know if the Governor sent back that kid an' his girl or not. I don't know what happened to 'em 'cause there comes a point when shit just ain't my business. It ain't what I do here. Don't know if they mighta been a group that went out to look at the prison. Ya know? Mighta—stirred Officer Friendly up a bit. Got his group goin'. Chompin' at the bits to come here an' start shit. All the hell I really know is they come an' they killed a couple of our people. Good damn chance they'll come back, too."

"So we're going to go there and what?" Andrea asked. "Kill them back?"

"If Woodbury goes to war," Merle said, "we all go. Able bodied men first. Women on back-up."

"This is ridiculous!" Michonne growled. "The Governor is one man! You're telling me that everyone here is so scared of one man that we're just going to—to go along blindly with whatever he says? We're just going to let him kill us if we try to leave?"

"He's not just one man," Andrea said. "You heard them out there. Everyone wants some justice for the attack last night. Everyone wants to go after the group at the prison."

"Besides that," Carol said, "nobody wants to lose this place. I'm not necessarily crazy about the Governor, but I have to admit that I like what you've got here. I like the idea of staying here. We've been out there. We know what it's like. Being here is a lot better."

"I'll second that," Andrea said.

"Not if you can't sleep well in your own bed because you're afraid of what might happen to you," Michonne said. "Not if you're afraid that your own leader is going to break in and kill you."

"Easy," Merle said. "Everybody's just jumpin' to conclusions. The Governor don't walk around killin' the good citizens of Woodbury in they sleep to entertain himself. He ain't no threat to nobody here that goes along with the damn laws of the land."

"And what's them laws, Merle?" Daryl asked. "That we go off killin' every damn body that comes around? Kill people if they wanna leave here? Go somewhere else?"

"He's askin' the same damn thing that I guess a lotta people have asked in the world," Merle said. "Loyalty. You get the best that Woodbury's got to offer, but to get that? There's gotta be some sacrifices. It don't all come free."

"I don't like the idea of it coming with blood, either," Andrea said.

Merle raised his eyebrows at her.

"You sure weren't complainin' when we saved your damn life," Merle said. "Give you a warm bed an' a roof over your head. You been eatin' your meals good as anybody an' takin' in whatever you're offered after every run."

Andrea sat back in her chair. She sighed and crossed her arms across her chest.

"I don't want to leave," she admitted.

"And I don't want to stay and die," Michonne said. "I understand fighting for Woodbury, if that's what we have to do. I understand fighting for the people here and fighting to keep what we've got. What I don't want to do is fight for some psychopath's ego or twisted ideas about how things ought to be."

"I'd be pretty damn careful throwin' around words like that," Merle warned her.

"Listen," Carol said, "we're not going to solve all our problems in one day. Here's what we know. We know that Rick brought a group here. We know that—there's some kind of misunderstanding or problem between Woodbury and Rick's group. As far as we know? There aren't any other groups in the area and it's going to be difficult, at least, for us to leave here. What if we don't focus on that?"

"What do you want to focus on instead?" Michonne asked.

"Trying to help resolve the conflict," Carol said.

"We gonna resolve it," Daryl said. "From what the Governor was sayin' this morning? We gonna resolve it by goin' to war. We're gonna just go and—fight with Rick's group. Unless you were thinkin' about joining them?"

Merle watched Carol as she watched Daryl. She drew her lips up into a tight line while she chewed over his words.

"I don't even know the Governor," Carol said finally, "but I can't say that he's any worse as a leader than Rick is. Not after everything we've all been through."

"He might kill you," Michonne offered.

"Better to be killed by a man who's honest about what the hell he intends than to be left behind by a sneaky ass bastard," Merle offered.

"I'm not sure that I disagree with Merle," Carol said.

"Maybe nobody has to kill anybody," Andrea said.

"That's the whole damn point of goin' to war, Andrea," Daryl offered.

"I'm not stupid, Daryl," Andrea snapped.

Both of them jumped when Sadie slammed her hand down, hard, on the table. She stared at all of them, her face drawn up in frustration or anger, and then she shook her hand. The impact had clearly been harder than she'd intended.

"That's enough," she said. "What's happening? I don't even know—what's happening! But—we can't fight. Not with each other." She shook her head. "We don't fight with each other."

Merle laughed to himself.

"She's got a damn point," Merle said. "Squabblin' amongst ourselves like a buncha damn kids ain't gettin' us no damn where. What it boils down to is—we either with Woodbury or we're against Woodbury. That's all the hell there is to it. Go to war an' fight for what we got or we give it all up an' suffer the consequences."

"What I'm talking about is a negotiation," Andrea said. "We know Rick. Most of us do, at least. Why can't we talk to him? See if we can't work something out?"

"How you gonna work somethin' out when he's done come and killed some people here?" Daryl asked.

"Maybe things haven't been handled correctly," Andrea said, "but maybe that's on both sides. If things with Glenn didn't—go so well? Maybe Rick's mad about it. Maybe we could figure something else out, though. We could sit down with Rick. Talk about it. Maybe we could figure out how everyone could just live peacefully. There has to be enough space and enough stuff for that to happen."

"Governor ain't gonna go for it," Merle said. "He done told us all that he don't feel like there's room for negotiation when Rick's already come here an' killed our people."

"Maybe that's because you don't have anybody that's good at negotiation," Andrea said. "I was a lawyer. I'll go to the Governor. I'll offer to help."

"You'll draw attention to yourself and maybe get yourself in trouble," Michonne said.

"Or maybe I can stop trouble from happening," Andrea said. "It's worth a try, Mich. I know people here. I'll tell him I'm on Woodbury's side. I don't want to leave. But I know people there, too, and I don't want to see them die. Maybe I can make it better. Maybe I can—figure out a way to keep anybody else from dying."

Merle felt everyone looking at him. They expected him to give some kind of green light or some kind of red light to the whole plan.

Merle glanced in Sophia's direction. She was watching him, too, and she didn't look away this time when she noticed him looking at her. She was a smart kid. She understood that this was a world where bad things happened and that was just part of their lives now. She understood that, sometimes, they just had to do what they had to do.

But she didn't want anybody to die.

She was still a kid, and she still believed that maybe things could be handled peacefully and the world could still be about rainbows and unicorns.

Merle glanced at Andrea. She was watching him with her face drawn up in concern over the answer he might give her. Maybe there was still something of that "kid" inside of her that she'd been when she was Sophia's age. She still wanted to believe that everything could be handled with a conversation and a hug all around.

Maybe something inside of Merle wanted that to be true, too, even if he knew it wasn't.

"It's worth a try," Merle said with a sigh. "Governor'll be eatin' breakfast. We oughta do the same. Then I'll take Andrea over. Let her say her peace if nothin' else."

"I don't like this," Michonne offered, just in case anyone couldn't guess what she was thinking from the scowl she wore.

"Don't worry," Merle said. "She's just offerin' to help Woodbury. I'll go with her. Ain't no harm gonna come to Andrea. Got my word on that."


	22. Chapter 22

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"I should go with you," Michonne insisted.

Merle laughed to himself. He was just about tired of dealing with everyone. He had opinions coming at him from what felt like every single direction and just turning his head to keep up with all of them was making him dizzy.

"How the hell you figure that, Samurai?" Merle asked, stuffing the rest of the supplies he'd been told to pack into a bag.

"Because I was a lawyer too," Michonne said.

Merle laughed to himself.

"One lawyer has always been more'n enough," Merle commented.

"And I don't trust him," Michonne said.

"That's more the hell like it," Merle said.

"I don't want Andrea out there with him," Michonne said. "I don't trust him. I don't want something to happen."

"Not a damn thing's gonna happen to Andrea if she listens," Merle said. "I done talked to her. Said it a half a dozen times to you an' her both, but I'll say it again if that's what the hell you need so damn bad. The Governor expects loyalty. Do what the hell he asks because he claims that ever' damn thing he does, he does for the good of everybody."

"But you don't believe that," Michonne said quickly, interrupting him.

"Don't matter what I believe," Merle said. "What I know is that—don't nobody that's a Woodbury citizen just up an' disappear. Especially not when they in a group. I don't imagine Andrea's gonna be the first as long as she's doin' her job out there. Her job's pretty damn simple. Sit down at a table with the Governor an' Rick an' have a damn conversation. That's all the hell she's gotta do."

"And if she says something he doesn't like?" Michonne asked.

Merle laughed to himself.

"Then he'll ask her to leave the damn room, but he ain't gonna shoot her in the head," Merle said. "Daryl an' me's gonna be there. Gonna be the muscle of the whole damn operation. Don't'cha worry about Andrea. You got my word, Samurai. You stay here—keep an eye out with Carol an' Sadie. Keep your eye on Soph. I'll make sure ya lil' honey gets right on back to you."

Merle winked at her. He could see the irritation on the woman's face, but she clearly knew that she wasn't going to win. They were heading out in an hour for the negotiations. They'd bought Woodbury some time, if nothing else, because it had taken a couple of days to set the whole meeting up with Rick and his people since Rick's group had so kindly shot the first of Woodbury's messengers that was sent to request the meeting. Though they had only injured the young man, and he'd heal from the gunshot wound, that little stunt, unfortunately, hadn't done much to put a good taste in the mouths of the citizens of Woodbury.

Still, the Governor was going through with the attempts to negotiate. After all, whether or not anything came from the meeting that was had, it would look better for him to be able to say that they'd tried everything.

Andrea would sit in on the negotiations and Merle and Daryl would go along to act as muscle. They'd also go along to get a feel for the situation and for what exactly was really taking place.

With more information, they'd be more prepared to figure out what to do.

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If Daryl had been given his choice about how he wanted to spend his day, he wouldn't have automatically chosen to stand outside an old barn that lie somewhere between Woodbury and the prison, being eaten alive by mosquitos, while people talked inside the barn. He had a new wife and a new kid. They were in a relatively safe place where they could at least pretend that the world around them was normal—when Rick and his friends weren't breaking in to kill their people—and Daryl could think of at least a dozen different ways he'd rather spend his day. He hadn't been given much of a choice, though, and accompanying his brother at least made him feel like he was doing something to keep his shiny new family as safe as he possibly could.

Rick had come with Hershel. The other person they'd brought for the negotiation was a man that Daryl didn't know. After meeting him, Daryl wasn't exactly torn up about the fact that he'd lived this long without knowing the man, either. Daryl had missed his name, but he was pretty sure it was something ridiculous like Ontario, and it hadn't taken him long to figure out that the guy was a complete asshole.

After a brief round of introductions, those that were handling the negotiations had gone inside the barn while everyone else remained outside. Ontario—or whatever the hell the man's name had been—had wandered off some distance like he was watching and expecting them to bring some kind of back-up army for a sneak attack on a couple of people. Rather than spend any more time in the asshole's company than was absolutely necessary, Daryl and Merle were simply hovering around the outside of the barn door and pretending that they were listening to what was happening inside just enough to make sure that Andrea didn't need their help.

They didn't have to hang there long, though, because Andrea emerged from the barn not too terribly long after she'd gone in.

"Got shit squared away already?" Daryl asked.

Andrea sighed dramatically and shook her head.

"They want to be left alone," Andrea said. "They said—they want to handle negotiations alone."

"Nobody's got no guns," Merle said. "Been frisked. Guess they just—shootin' the shit."

"It don't look good?" Daryl asked. "You look worried."

"You know," Hershel said from where he was sitting—the man had somehow lost a leg since Daryl had last seen him, though Daryl hadn't pried into his business, "despite the way it probably looks—I'm here for advice, should it be needed, and not for protection. It's safe to speak to me. Andrea? Daryl?" When they didn't speak to him, though they both glanced in his direction, Hershel laughed to himself. "Regardless," he continued, "I'm happy to see you both alive."

"Then help us do something about this," Andrea said. She walked over and sat down next to Hershel. "Talk to Rick. Help us figure out how to do this so that we all stay alive—every one of us."

"I'd like that as much as you would," Hershel said. "But after what that man in there—your Governor? After what he did to Maggie and Glenn?" Hershel shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not really me who's calling the shots."

"Weren't never you," Daryl said. "Weren't nobody but Rick callin' the shots."

"What happened to Glenn and Maggie?" Andrea asked.

Daryl didn't miss the old man's glance at his brother. Merle had been involved in whatever had happened with Glenn and he wouldn't have had any problem reporting that. He'd told them all about it, once, when Sophia was in bed and couldn't overhear anything that he thought might scare her. Merle might not be proud of everything he did, but he owned it at least.

Merle leaned against the vehicle they'd brought, a few feet away from them, and smoked a cigarette. He watched Hershel back with the same intensity that Hershel used to watch him for a lingering moment.

"Why don't you ask Merle about that?" Hershel asked.

"I got nothin' to hide," Merle said. "Done what the hell I had to do."

"You had your people capture Glenn and Maggie so you could treat them that way?" Hershel asked.

"They coulda been cut loose as sure as the rest of us," Merle said. "Seen Glenn an' knowed I knowed him, but it's my job to do my damn job."

"Your job is torture?" Hershel asked. "And you like living like that?"

Merle sucked his teeth.

"The hell you know about shit, old man?" Hershel asked. "Your Rick? Left me handcuffed to a roof. Caused me to cut off my own hand. Left me for dead. Andrea? Left her for dead. Runnin' alone like she could outrun the fuckin' end of times. Left Sophia alone—like some kid could take care of herself out there. An' even if she could? Don't make it right. So you don't come here talkin' to me like you comin' from some better place. I do what the hell I gotta do, but so does everybody else."

Hershel dropped his eyes.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you," Hershel said. "To all of you. Rick's sorry too."

"Fuck that," Merle said with a laugh. "He don't give a shit about none of us. You wanna know the truth about it? Glenn got his ass beat. Yeah—he did. I'm the one that beat it for him. But I ain't touched the woman he was with. Never even laid a fuckin' hand on her."

"Your Governor did," Hershel said.

"What happened to Maggie?" Andrea asked quickly and loudly. Daryl instinctively shushed her so she wouldn't draw any attention to them of the human or Walker variety. Andrea checked herself and the volume of her voice before she spoke again. "Did he—did he...rape her?"

"Fuck no," Merle said. "He mighta beat her ass—I can't say he didn't do that. Mighta killed her, but now I know he didn't—let 'em go an' get all the way back to the prison. But I know he ain't raped her. He's an asshole, but the Governor don't gotta beg no damn woman to come to his bed. Got him a line around the block. Damn near every woman comes in Woodbury's lookin' to give her thanks for all he done for her and shit. He's an asshole—but he ain't that asshole."

"Apparently he's a torture you an' kill you asshole," Daryl said, struck with an odd kind of humor over such a statement. "Not a rape you asshole." He laughed to himself again, almost sorry that he was struck with humor over something that really was no laughing matter. "Gotta know your fuckin' assholes, apparently. Shit..." By way of shutting himself up, and maybe offering a sort of apology for his out of place humor, Daryl lit a cigarette and busied himself with smoking it.

"He humiliated her," Hershel said.

"I'm so sorry," Andrea offered.

"Shut up Andrea," Merle said. "Let me ask you something. You remember how you felt? When you was comin' back around? Huh? Half-dead. Yeah? Laid up there in that clinic—not knowin' if you died an' ole Merle here was greetin' your ass at the pearly damn gates? You remember how you felt 'fore you run into your lil' friend? What the hell it felt like to feel your heart poundin'—knowin' every minute you could die? Knowin' you was gonna die an' there weren't a damn thing you could do about it? Remember the feelin' of gettin' your ass plucked out the damn dirt? Havin' someone that saved you? A place that saved you? Some damn where you could eat an' rest easy—feelin' them antibiotics in your veins? I know you do. 'Cause I still remember it. That shit? It was a helluva lot worse than bein' fuckin' _embarrassed_."

Andrea ducked her head at Merle's words and examined the ground in front of her.

"I understand you're angry," Hershel offered.

"We're all angry," Daryl said. "If it'd just been on Rick? Carol woulda lost her daughter. Never woulda seen her again. Woulda spent the rest of her life mournin' her damn kid. Now she's at home— _our_ home. They bakin' cookies and doing whatever they do. Safe and sound."

"You found the girl?" Hershel asked.

Daryl swallowed and nodded his head. The old man looked pleased.

"Merle did," Daryl said. "She's been livin' with him. Safe. Goin' to school proper an' shit. Growin' up fine. Taken care of. Sleepin' good at night. Not scared. Not left alone in the damn woods to fend for herself until a Walker ate her up."

Hershel frowned at Daryl and shook his head.

"The Governor—you know he's a bad man," Hershel said. "You know that, Daryl."

Daryl swallowed.

The look that crossed Merle's face softened his expression a little. Andrea maintained her interest in the dirt. They'd talked about it almost all night the night before. All of them had, and it wasn't the first night that they'd spent in something of a family meeting. They'd practically had a slumber party and stayed up all night in the living room just gathering together what the hell they knew in bits and pieces.

The Governor was no saint. He wasn't a good man. But they couldn't be sure how bad he was, either. After all, it seemed that his poor treatment only extended to the "thems" of the world. And the circle of "thems" seemed at least a little larger for the Governor than they ever had been with Rick Grimes.

"He might be that," Daryl said. "But he ain't done none of us wrong. At least—not so we'd know it."

"He has people tortured," Hershel said. "Isn't that enough?"

Merle laughed to himself.

"Better an honest sinner than a false saint," Merle said. "Listen—I ain't sayin' he's got no faults."

"But?" Hershel asked.

"Didn't say no but," Merle responded. "Don't got nothin' else to add."

"We have a pretty good group," Hershel said. "A large group. We met some people on the road. They've been working with us to build up the prison. We cleared most of two cell blocks out and we're hoping to expand. We're hoping to grow food. We've even taken in a few prisoners that were there. They seem like decent people and we're not holding their incarceration against them. If we have to fight to protect ourselves? We've got the firepower. The ammunition. Nobody wants to see you die. You were with the group before. You belong with us. Merle—even you could earn your place within the group. You don't have to fight against us. You can come back."

Merle laughed to himself.

"I paid my dues, old man," Merle responded. "I like my home. Got somethin'—somethin' I ain't never had there." Merle shook his head. "It ain't really no offer to tell me I can go to some prison an' beg Officer Friendly to let me in. Let my—my woman in. Just wait an' see when his ass don't need us no more or he throws us to the fuckin' wolves to save his skin." Merle shook his head and hummed in the negative. "No. It ain't no offer to me."

"You'd rather die for him?" Hershel asked. "For a man that calls himself the Governor?" Hershel asked.

"It's not that we like what he does," Daryl said. "Ain't that we support it or—even understand it. It's that—we know what happens with Rick. Maybe we're makin' a stupid choice, but we're choosin' to stay where we are. With our people. Don't trust him, but I don't trust Rick, neither."

"Andrea?" Hershel asked, reaching a hand out and touching Andrea's leg to get her attention. She'd been staring at the dirt so hard that Daryl was almost to the point of asking her if she needed his help getting somewhere because she might be sick or something. She looked up at Hershel, though, when he touched her leg and shook her head. "Come back with us? You belong with us."

"No," Andrea said. "I got—what'd you call it, Merle? Cut loose?"

Merle laughed to himself and nodded. Andrea nodded in response.

"That's not my home," Andrea said. "And—they're not my people. I'm going to stay with my people."

"I just don't want to see you get hurt," Hershel said. "I don't want to see anybody get hurt but—I don't want to see any of you get hurt especially."

"Believe it or not," Merle said. "Ain't what we wanna see neither. Gonna do what we can not to see it happen that way. But—we ain't goin' back to Officer Friendly, neither. Fool me once, shame on me an' all that bullshit."


	23. Chapter 23

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here. Not too terribly much more to go here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"The problem is I don't trust neither damn one of 'em far as I could throw 'em, and that ain't too damn far," Merle said, leaning against the kitchen cabinet and nursing the drink that he'd poured for himself. Daryl tasted his drink, but he wasn't too enthusiastic about having too much of the beverage. A hangover seemed like something he didn't want to risk right now. "Kickin' Andrea out? It weren't shit that Andrea done. It was all about bein' able to say whatever the hell they wanted without a single fuckin' witness. He says Rick can't be made to see reason. Just sees red. Says Rick says they won't back down. Rick's sayin' they got the bodies. Got the firepower. Not another damn thing to do but march everybody over there an' hope we can put down however many men Rick's workin' with. Or—at the very least—convince 'em to wave the white flag."

Daryl lit a cigarette and leaned against the counter nearest the sink so he could flick his ashes directly into the sink without bothering to go for the ashtray that Merle was using.

"You know better'n me, brother," Daryl said, "about the people here. We don't know what we're up against—not exactly. But—what the hell's the odds that our people could beat their people?"

Merle laughed to himself. He shook his head, tasted his drink, and shook his head again before he set about working to light a cigarette for himself. Daryl gave him the time he needed to get the cigarette lit and to think about his answer.

"People of Woodbury? They ain't soldiers. Hell, brother—if you can hit about fifty percent of what the hell you're aimin' for? You move pretty damn quickly up the list here as far as protection goes," Merle said.

"We don't know that nobody Rick's got is soldiers neither," Daryl said.

"Ain't good odds either way," Merle said. "Don't like the idea of draggin' people out there just to add to the body count. Don't like the idea of walkin' into some kinda damn suicide mission either. Not for—a couple bags of flour and some shit they mighta scraped up on some runs."

"You still think the whole damn war is over turf?" Daryl asked. "Just over shit?"

"No," Merle said. "No. I think at least half of it's a fuckin' pissin' contest. It's a dick measurin' contest. That's what the hell I think half of it is. The other half? That's over shit. An' neither one of them things feels worth dyin' for. Not to me."

"Me neither," Daryl said. "But we ain't dead yet—so there's still some hope."

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"I love—you being here like this," Carol said, rubbing her hand over Daryl's side.

She was naked and wrapped around him, tangled up with the sheet, and she was perfect. Everything about her was perfect. Daryl was almost certain that the woman had not a single flaw about her.

Yet, somehow, she still loved him. And Daryl didn't doubt her love because he could practically feel it coursing through her veins.

And he loved her, too. He could feel that coursing through his own veins with every single drumming of his heart.

Daryl laughed to himself at Carol's tone and the expression on her face. If he hadn't known she'd been nowhere near the alcohol that Merle had brought back to the apartment from supplies, Daryl might have thought she was drunk.

"You serious?" Daryl asked, teasing her.

"Yeah," Carol said, a smile on her face but her voice sincere. "I couldn't be more serious."

"There's nothin' special about me," Daryl said. "You know? Now that..." he laughed to himself, figuring out how he was going to tease her to keep her in the same playful mood she'd been in since he'd come into the room and interrupted her sleep only to be offered some unexpected sex. "Now that we found Woodbury? I hear there's a whole lotta eligible bachelors."

"Hmmm?" Carol hummed at him, rubbing her hands over his skin again. She raised her eyebrows at him in him question.

"Mmm hmmm," Daryl said. "Lots."

"There's a lot of eligible women, too," Carol offered. "Wanna change your mind?"

"Mmmm," Daryl hummed in the negative, accepting the kiss that Carol offered him while he thought things over. "Think I'm good."

Carol laughed to herself.

"I know you are," she offered.

"Stop," Daryl said, his cheeks burning warm. Carol simply smiled in response. She had a certain way of looking at Daryl sometimes, especially when she was trying to get a rise out of him, that was almost evil. "You're in a pretty good damn mood for someone who might be goin' to war. I'm glad to see it, but I kinda figured you'd be more worried than this. Is it 'cause you got to spend the day with Sophia?"

"That's certainly part of it," Carol said, rolling away from Daryl and adjusting her position, apparently to make herself more comfortable. "The other part? Is that I'm just not really worried." She shook her head at Daryl.

Daryl moved, then, and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the nightstand. He lit one and Carol wiggled her fingers at him. He let her take the cigarette and take a drag from it, as she sometimes liked to do, before she handed it back to him.

"You know somethin' I don't know?" Daryl asked. "Because—I told you what happened out there. It don't look good. Looks like we gonna end up fightin' Rick's group for a whole buncha shit."

Carol nodded her head.

"And a dick measuring contest," Carol said.

"That too," Daryl said.

"But—I didn't tell you what I did today," Carol said.

"Spent the day with Sophia," Daryl said.

Carol hummed.

"You'd be surprised how easily a deaf lady, a housewife, and a kid can go just about anywhere they want," Carol said. "They can—just about overhear anything they want to overhear. They can walk through all kinds of red tape. They can even distract anyone who needs to be distracted so that—let's just say—someone who was, maybe, just a little bit more of a ninja could get somewhere she was trying to go without a problem."

Daryl furrowed his eyebrows at her.

"What the hell you been up to today?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled at him.

"Maybe just—working on a backup plan?" Carol offered. "Checking things out. Finding out what we were working with."

"Whatta you mean?" Daryl asked.

"Do you still want a future with me, Daryl?" Carol asked. This time it was clear that she was being sincere.

Daryl swallowed. He nodded his head.

"Maybe it's the wrong kinda world to be wanting something like that," Daryl offered.

"I don't think it is," Carol said. "I still want a future with you. With Sophia. You're sure—she hasn't changed your mind? About wanting a future with me?"

Daryl laughed to himself and shook his head.

"She's a good kid," Daryl said. "Got a lot of spunk."

"That's what your brother says," Carol said.

"Well, he ain't wrong," Daryl responded.

"Then—if that's what we both want, then that's what we should have," Carol said. "I talked to Sadie. She wants a future with Merle. Michonne—well, maybe she's a little less clear about how she wants her future to look, but she knows she wants a future with Andrea. We're all looking forward to one thing—and that's the life that we want to live. The future we want to have."

Daryl nodded his head.

"Yeah," he said, lighting another cigarette for himself off the one he'd just finished. He snubbed out the old one. "So—what do you mean? What kind of backup plan were y'all workin' out?"

Carol smiled at him and wiggled her fingers at him again. He passed her the cigarette and she took a drag from it, like she had with the first, before she passed it back to him and changed her position in the bed so that she could sit facing him directly.

"We know what we want," Carol said. "And it's something that we believe is worth fighting for, right?"

"Our future?" Daryl asked. Carol nodded her head. "It's worth fightin' for a helluva lot more than anything else we're facing fightin' for right now."

"Then that's what we're going to do," Carol said. "We're going to fight for it."

"And how do y'all figure we're gonna do that?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled.

"You sure you're not too tired to listen?" Carol asked. "Because—I've got a lot of information. With breaks? It could take hours."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Night's young," Daryl said. "I like a good story. Got a good feeling I'm gonna enjoy it—the whole thing."

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"I thought you said they wanted to fight," Andrea said. She was sitting on their bed and she was watching Michonne cram their things into the two small bags that she'd designated fit for them to carry.

"They do," Michonne said. "But I'm not them. I say it's better if we cut our losses. Go. If we stay? He's going to kill us or he's going to be the reason we get killed."

"Unless we go through with it," Andrea said.

"If it backfires?" Michonne responded. "We're all dead."

"If we run? Right now? With things like they are? Mich—there are guards out there that might shoot us. You don't know they won't. Wandering around in the dark?" Andrea shook her head. "It's too risky to leave right now. Not with things like they are."

"It's too dangerous to stay!" Michonne barked. Andrea shushed her. "It's too dangerous to stay," Michonne repeated in the softer tone that they'd chosen for their middle of the night discussion.

Andrea sucked in a breath and let it out.

"I don't want to go, Mich," Andrea said. "I don't know if I have another winter left in me. I don't know how long it'll be until I get sick again and this time? I'll just die out there."

Michonne left what she was doing for the moment. She crossed the room and caught Andrea's face in her hands. She shook her head at her.

"You don't die," Michonne said, her words coming out as a command more than a statement of fact. Michonne leaned and kissed Andrea hard before she pulled back and shook her head at her again. "That's why we have to go, Andrea. You didn't see what I saw. None of you did. You don't know how crazy this man really is."

"Then tell me," Andrea said softly. "Tell me, Mich. We'll share it."

Michonne sighed and sat down on the bed. It was clear that she was troubled by what she'd seen, but she hadn't gone into much detail about it other than to say that it was horrible and the Governor was crazier than they'd even suspected he might be.

"Tell me, Mich," Andrea urged again when Michonne seemed to hesitate.

"His place—it's like there are two parts to it," Michonne said.

Andrea nodded her head to urge Michonne to continue. Michonne, apparently, had broken into the Governor's apartment somehow—or had gotten in there since the people guarding his space had been temporarily absent—and she'd had a look around. Her own rule was that she wouldn't touch anything so that he'd never suspect a thing and it wouldn't come back on them, but she was looking for some kind of evidence about what kind of man he was.

As Daryl might have said that day in front of the old barn, they wanted to know exactly which kind of asshole they were dealing with.

"Two parts?" Andrea asked when Michonne didn't immediately start talking. "Mich? You're scaring me. I mean—I'm starting to feel like you're going to tell me that he's holding people hostage up there or something."

Andrea laughed nervously to herself and Michonne stared at her. Andrea felt her stomach twist.

"People?" Andrea asked.

"Not exactly," Michonne said. She sighed. "The front part of his apartment is just an apartment. Like—it could be anyone's apartment. Just normal. There's a door, though, that's locked." Michonne laughed to herself. "He's got to think his ass is untouchable. The door wasn't locked to the apartment and that door inside? It was locked but it took me less than five minutes to find where he had the key. That door leads to what I'm guessing was—maybe something like an extra bedroom? Maybe a home office? He might have even called it a man cave or something."

"That's not that unusual," Andrea offered. "A lot of single men have private man caves."

"Do they also have cages in those rooms? He's got a Walker in there, Andrea. I heard it growling. It's a child. About Sophia's height. It was wearing a bag over its head, but it was—it was wearing a dress," Michonne said. "He has a fucking Walker in his apartment."

"A child?" Andrea asked.

Michonne nodded her head.

"That's horrible," Andrea said.

"He's a killer," Michonne said.

"We knew that," Andrea said. "To be fair."

"We didn't know he kept Walkers," Michonne responded. "We didn't know he—he killed _children_."

"What if he didn't kill her?" Andrea asked. She shrugged at Michonne's expression. "I'm just saying—grief is a terrible thing. What if he didn't kill her? What if—you had the pets, Mich."

"OK," Michonne said. "OK—I'll give you that. But that wasn't all that he had in this room. He had a big armchair. Recliner deal. You know the type."

"Not at all out of place in a man cave, Mich," Andrea said. "And certainly not a reason for us to start off in the middle of the night and risk getting shot to death just to get away from a man with a recliner."

In spite of herself, Michonne laughed, but her facial expression quickly returned to something more neutral.

"In front of the recliner, just where you'd expect his big screen to be?" Michonne said. "Fish tanks full of heads. Human heads. Walker heads."

"Heads?" Andrea asked.

Michonne nodded.

"Whose heads?" Andrea asked.

"They weren't talking," Michonne said.

Andrea laughed despite the fact that her stomach was twisting itself into uncomfortable knots.

"I guess—there's no television at the end of the world," Andrea said. "You're going to want something to watch."

"I can't believe you're laughing at this," Michonne said.

Andrea shook her head.

"Me either," she said. "I'm not. Really, I'm not. I guess—I'm diffusing the situation? Mich—we know he's crazy. We know he's done bad things. He's probably done more than we can even imagine. I guess—I'm finding it harder to be shocked than I used to. Maybe I came into this expecting to hear the worst so I'm not as surprised. But we don't know any details about—where the Walkers came from or why they're locked up in his home. And we already knew he was crazy."

"And he's going to get us killed if we stay here," Michonne said.

Andrea shook her head.

"He's going to kill us if we go," Andrea said. "But if we stay? If we stick to the plan? Michonne—we're stronger than he is. And there's strength in numbers. Woodbury? It' a great place. Merle and Daryl? Carol and Sadie? Michonne—they're not going to let one man take this from them. And I'm sure there are going to be plenty of others who feel the same way. People who don't want to die and don't want to go to war—not for one crazy man who doesn't really care about them. I don't want to leave, Michonne. I want to stay. I want us to fight."

"I don't want you to die," Michonne said.

Andrea laughed to herself.

"Then I'll do my best to stay alive," Andrea said. "As long as you promise me that you'll do the same." Michonne nodded her head. "And—you promise me that we're not running."

There was silence for a long moment and Andrea reached her hand up to stroke Michonne's cheek. Michonne caught her hand and stopped her. Then she brought Andrea's hand to her lips and pressed her lips gently against Andrea's knuckles.

"We're not running," Michonne said. "You moved when I asked you to keep moving and it nearly killed you. If you want to stay? We'll stay. We'll fight."


	24. Chapter 24

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Merle stared at the folded pieces of paper that Sadie offered in his direction.

"The fuck is that?" Merle asked.

Sadie rolled her eyes at him dramatically and wiggled the paper up and down a few inches from his face to encourage him to take what she offered him. Merle growled at her. Maybe she couldn't hear him, but she could understand the frustration he felt over her guarded silence. She laughed at him and sat down on the edge of the bed, her leg folded under her, as soon as he took the papers.

Merle unfolded what she'd offered him and looked at it. His eyes scanned over the pages.

"The hell is this?" Merle asked.

"Guns," Sadie said. "Ammunition."

Now it was Merle's turn to roll his eyes at her.

"I can see that shit, Sadie," Merle said. "What is it, though? Why the hell are you givin' me this?"

"Inventory," Sadie said. "For Woodbury."

"These are all the guns that Woodbury has?" Merle asked.

Sadie nodded her head.

"And ammunition," Sadie said. "Everything in the warehouse."

"How the fuck did you get this?" Merle asked.

Sadie smiled at him.

"I got a job," Sadie said.

"A job?" Merle asked.

"I was working the wall today," Sadie said. "I had—a problem with my gun. That's what I told them. I took it to the warehouse. I saw them, this morning, unloading boxes from a run. I told them that—I told them I wanted something to do that was a little more...inside today. I offered to help with the boxes."

"Right..." Merle said. "But still—I don't think even I ever seen all the guns together in the warehouse."

Sadie smiled at him.

"I'm a woman," Sadie said. "Very—stupid. I don't know much about guns. Just enough to be dangerous to myself and everyone else when I pick one up. And—I can't hear. So—I can't really do anything."

"The hell are you talkin' about?" Merle asked. She smiled at him again and raised her eyebrows.

"That's what they think," Sadie said.

"But it ain't true," Merle said.

"Right now? It's important that it's true," Sadie said. "Turns out? I was perfect! They had orders from the Governor to take care of, but they needed to run the warehouse too. They needed someone to help them. While they did the hard work, I was just supposed to man the warehouse. They moved boxes and prepared things for the Governor, and I checked guns in and out for guards and wall-duty."

"But the whole damn time you playin' secretary, you're wanderin' around takin' inventory of what the hell Woodbury's got," Merle said.

Sadie nodded.

"They didn't suspect nothin'?" Merle asked.

Sadie shook her head.

"They only caught me once," Sadie said. "I told them—I thought I should get more guns to take up front to hand out." Merle laughed to himself when she demonstrated for him the facial expression that she'd apparently chosen to allow her to display her cluelessness to the men that she was duping. "I told them—with so much danger? I thought maybe we needed more guns." She laughed to herself. "They said not to hand out more than what I had. They needed to keep track of what was out there and if I was taking things, they'd lose track." She shook her head. "They don't know what's in there anyway. I found their inventory list."

"And that's what this is?" Merle asked, raising up the piece of paper. Sadie shook her head.

"That's my list," Sadie said. "They don't have most of that. We could remove...pffttt..." She blew out her breath and Merle laughed to himself as he watched her, eyes turned up to the ceiling, doing some kind of math in her head that he couldn't have managed without using his fingers and, probably, a calculator. "We could remove twenty five percent of that before they even had any idea it was gone. And that's if they were counting. We could remove a lot more before they'd just see that it was gone."

Merle laughed to himself.

"Twenty five percent, even," Merle mused, looking over the papers again, "is still a damn good bit. A damn good bit."

Sadie smiled and nodded.

"But how the hell you reckon we get this twenty five percent?" Merle asked. "They gonna notice us walkin' through the damn streets with all these guns and ammo, even if they don't notice 'em missin' in the damn warehouse."

"You leave that to those of us who are invisible," Sadie said. "You just help us find the people who want to use the guns. OK?"

Merle nodded his head at her.

"I told you lately how damn wonderful you are?" Merle asked.

Sadie grinned at him and shook her head.

"No," she said.

"You are," Merle said. "You're—fuckin' incredible."

She smirked at him and pointed to her ear before she pushed her bottom lip out as well as she could against the smile she was fighting and put on her best fake frown.

"I can't hear you," she said.

"Then come here," Merle said with a laugh. "Lemme show ya."

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Carol wasn't entirely comfortable knowing that, underneath her clothes, her daughter was "wearing" the makings of some pretty heavy artillery, but Sophia wanted to help. The truth of the matter was that they could move things more quickly, too, when it was three of them working together instead of just Carol and Sadie.

They moved pretty easily back and forth between the warehouse and their apartment.

It was true. The three of them were invisible and it seemed like everything they did was done under some kind of shield of invisibility.

Every now and again they changed their route. They switched up the directions they walked in. They spoke to one another sometimes, and other times they didn't. They shared a fake joke, walked together on one trip or another, and stopped to do some other task from time to time.

The more they made themselves visible, the more invisible it seemed they became.

Sadie had gained them "in and out" access to the warehouse by taking a "job" at the warehouse handing out guns. She'd quickly convinced those that were supposed to be guarding the place that she was fine there alone. They were more than welcome to deal with the "more pressing" things that she was sure that "Important men" like them must have to handle. She could be trusted with such a simple job and she could stay there, keeping watch, so that they were freed up to do the things that really mattered.

It was pretty unsurprising to Carol that the men had fallen for Sadie's line—and they'd probably fallen a little bit for her charm and pretty face—hook, line, and sinker. They'd left her in charge of handing out weapons and ammunition to those who were working on guard, on the wall, or going through changes in those positions.

What they didn't know was that she was also handing out guns to Carol and Sophia and that, every time she took a break, she also managed to make a quick run back to the apartment to drop off a load of artillery.

They didn't have to rush. They didn't have to draw attention to themselves. They could take their time. They had all day and this was their only true job for the day—moving the weapons that they would need.

The rest of the plan was in the very capable hands of everyone else, and Carol was certain they'd be as successful as the "invisibles" were with their part of the plan.

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It was tricky figuring out who they could trust. If they trusted the wrong person, they pretty much sealed their fate and assured that they ended up dead. The Governor wanted loyalty, after all, and finding out that some of his trusted citizens were planning an uprising wouldn't exactly fill him with a warm feeling of love and brotherhood, especially not when he was already consumed with trying to plan the war that he intended to wage against a neighboring community.

Merle had quickly and easily identified some of the regular citizens, though, that he felt might be on the fence about the Governor and the war that they were all facing. He'd picked out some individuals that he was pretty sure would be willing to go their way—and nobody was "useless" to them, from the oldest person there to the youngest—and he'd sent Michonne and Andrea to handle dealing with those regular citizens.

Michonne, he argued, intimidated people enough to convince them to keep their mouths shut if they weren't going along with things. Andrea was "just right" for winning over most of the people since they would instinctively trust the green eyed, blonde haired woman more than they would Michonne or either Dixon.

With the two women off talking to the "regular" citizens of Woodbury, Merle had given Daryl the task of speaking with the others that he'd signaled out to him. These were people who, like Merle, worked in the Governor's employ but weren't entirely sold on the man's ways of doing everything. They were some of the people closest to the Governor, but they realized that just being "close" to him didn't mean that they knew him any better than anybody else. They also knew that it only meant they were "safe" for as long as he wanted them to be safe.

After Merle signaled the people that he thought were most likely to join the "movement", Merle had gone to work. He'd reported directly to the Governor and he'd gotten started working with the Governor's council to plan their strategy for dealing with Rick's group. He would be as privy to what the Governor knew as anybody would ever be, and his presence in the Governor's private meetings would reaffirm his loyalty, reassure the Governor that everyone was on his side, and reduce the chance that the Dixons—or anyone they were "related to"—fell under any kind of suspicion.

Surprise, after all, and secrecy were what they mostly had going for them as they moved forward.

If their cover got blown, or if someone ratted them out, there was a very good chance that all of them simply disappeared—and they knew that.

Daryl had his list of names and he had his instructions from Merle about who to approach and how to handle the interactions. He was meeting with them, one by one, as quietly as he could. He was explaining their feelings on what was happening, their thoughts about how things ought to be handled, and how much weaponry they'd have at their disposal.

What he was finding, as he moved from person to person, was that there were a lot more people who were interested in what he had to say than Daryl might have imagined there would be in the beginning. Those who worked for the Governor, it seemed, worked for him largely for the same reasons that Merle did—they were guaranteed a great deal of comfort and a certain amount of safety by remaining loyal and remaining close. There seemed to be no great love for the Governor among them, though, and Daryl soon learned that the Governor was a man who ruled mostly with fear and a certain amount of uncertainty.

Daryl was also confident that the men that Merle had identified as probable allies weren't likely to blow the cover on what was taking place because most of them, like Merle, were greatly concerned with keeping everything under wraps for as long as possible. The Governor, after all, expected loyalty from the citizens of Woodbury and they weren't safe, as a whole, until they were presenting themselves as that unified whole.

The Governor was one man.

Those that truly supported him—or at least supported him to the point that Merle wouldn't have dared to share their plans with them—were few.

Daryl didn't want anyone to have to die. He really wasn't overjoyed at the thought of killing at all. But this was one time when he was simply going to have to make an exception.

None of them wanted to see people die. None of them wanted to kill. This time, though, they'd do what they had to do to save themselves, their families, and the truly good citizens of a place that none of them wanted to lose or leave. They would do what they had to do to ensure their future in a world where very little was certain.

And if people had to die, then at least they believed in the reason for their fight.


	25. Chapter 25

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Behind the Governor's back, they sent out one of their allies in the man's employ to request, essentially, a cease-fire from Rick and his people. Under the guise of going out to check on the progress at the prison and to see if they were preparing for a surprise attack before Woodbury moved on them, the Governor signed off on the man's departure. The man in question, instead of doing what the Governor thought he was doing, truly only planned to ask Rick's group to hold off on attacking and, instead, to consider a "re-negotiation" that would take place after there were some leadership changes made in Woodbury.

They never knew Rick's answer, though, because the Governor decided to call the alarm for an attack before the man returned from his task.

The people of Woodbury, under the order of the Governor, would leave Woodbury at daybreak to attack the prison. They would be sent out in waves. The men would go first. Then the most able bodied women would go some hours later if such a dispatch was necessary. So as to not rile people up too much, the Governor intended to keep the plan under wraps until dawn and only share the information with his council.

What he didn't know was that more than half his council intended for him to never see the dawn.

Michonne asked for the role that she had been given. Anyone could have taken it and, maybe, there were some who were better suited for the role than she was, but she wanted it. She'd been granted her wish.

Her previous trip to the Governor's apartment had already familiarized her with the layout of his personal space. It had already allowed her to become familiar with his safety measures or lack thereof. It had also put a taste in her mouth for seeing the world—and, in particular, Woodbury—rid of the man.

Like anyone with an incredible and uncontrolled ego, the Governor clearly believed himself to be untouchable. He locked his door, but he didn't bother to deadbolt it. The lock on the door was an old lock that Michonne could easily pick with a hairpin—something she'd learned out of necessity when she'd lived in her first apartment and had learned that certain doors there seemed to have a habit of locking on their own.

Inside his apartment, Michonne moved easily enough through the space. She'd avoided light as much as possible so that her eyes were adjusted to the darkness. She didn't want him to hear her until she was ready for him. First she'd get rid of the Walker-child, lest he try to release the thing and leave them struggling with a Walker among them, and then she'd deal with him, surrounded by the evidence of the kind of man that he was—a man that was, at the very least, too unstable to run a community.

Outside, everyone else was taking their positions to deal with those who would support the man and try to save him. They were taking their places to make it clear to everyone that they weren't going to allow the Governor to remain in power, and they weren't going to allow his toadies to take over power either.

Michonne found the key to the theoretical man cave with ease. He didn't know she'd been there before. He'd never moved the key. She unlocked the door as quietly as she could as she slipped into the man cave. The aquariums filled with heads, all of the people they'd once belonged to unknown to her, lit up the room with an eerie glow. Michonne avoided looking at them directly and crossed the room to the cage. The door was locked, but only with a simple bar and hook system. She wouldn't need to search out another key to free the Walker.

Michonne pulled her katana and tried to open the door as quietly as possible. It let out a metallic groan, however, and drew the attention of the Walker-child. The Walker slammed itself into the door as hard as it could, determined to get to the live person that it could smell on the other side of the bars.

It was a child. It was clearly a child. And Michonne's heart ached for the little creature in a way that she considered unnatural.

She'd lost her own children when the world had turned and, like Andrea had said, grief could be a complicated thing. It sometimes made them all do crazy things.

Michonne didn't know the reason for the man's keeping of this particular Walker as a pet, but she'd pieced together enough with Merle's knowledge to suspect that it might be the daughter that the Governor had mentioned having, but whom Merle had never actually seen before.

If that were the case, Michonne could sympathize with the man's loss. She could even understand his grief, but she couldn't support keeping an intact Walker, in a cage, inside a community that advertised itself to be "Biter-free".

She was also fairly certain that there wasn't such a neat explanation for the rows of head-filled tanks, which signaled to her that this man had gone far over the deep end and had been there for a while.

When Michonne opened the door to the cage, the Walker ran forward, its head covered with a cloth bag, and Michonne caught the creature by the shoulder. It snapped and snarled at her through its cloth cover, but it was of very little threat to her at the moment since it was bound. She apologized to the child quietly for everything she'd suffered and she prepared herself to drive her katana through the Walker's brain and end its time wandering.

She only stopped when he yelled at her to do just that.

Michonne froze. She hadn't meant for him to wake up and find her just yet, but the Walker had made more noise than Michonne had really intended for it to make.

"Please—stop," he said. "There's no reason that she has to get hurt."

"She's dead," Michonne said. "She can't be hurt anymore."

"Just—give me back my little girl," the Governor insisted.

"She isn't a little girl," Michonne said. "Not anymore."

When the man started toward her, Michonne quickly drove the katana through the skull of the Walker so that, in the scuffle that was bound to ensue, the Walker couldn't get loose to bite either of them. Immediately, the Governor let out a yell and launched himself at Michonne. She lost her hold on her katana and it skidded across the floor, so she did what she had to do and threw herself into hand-to-hand combat with the irate man.

The struggle went on for far longer than Michonne would have liked for it to last. She wanted to believe that she could physically best the man with ease, but that wasn't turning out to be true. More than once he caught her in a position that made her worry that she wouldn't keep the upper hand. They moved all around the room, slamming each other into one thing or another as they went. Michonne returned every injury she got from the man, but it seemed like neither of them was able to win and neither was prepared to lose.

The fight stopped abruptly, though, when the sound of gunfire rang through the room.

Michonne was as surprised by the noise as the Governor was and they both paused to look toward the doorway and see where the sound had come from.

Michonne heard the Governor laugh in his throat.

"Finally," he said. "A little help here? Since you brought her in—this one's been feral. She's been snooping around. She's a danger to the community. You can see that yourself."

As though he hadn't been part of the scuffle, the Governor got up and left Michonne on the floor. Both of them were banged up and bloody. Both of them would carry scars away from this fight. But he was more than prepared to blame the whole thing on Michonne—and maybe it was her fault. She'd come there, after all, seeking the fight.

"I think it's time for her to leave Woodbury," the Governor said. "It doesn't set a good example for everyone else. The woman she's with—Andrea? We've got room for Andrea. Someone who—understands us. Someone who fits in with Woodbury."

"Someone you wouldn't mind fuckin'," Merle said. He laughed to himself a moment later and the Governor laughed in response.

"I think you and I both know that there's no need to see her outside of the gates. Taking her out like this—it would just cause trouble," the Governor said. "With things like they are and with us moving on the prison in the morning? I don't want to cause any kind of—insecurity—among my supporters."

Merle laughed again and the Governor echoed the sound.

Michonne watched it all from her position on the floor. She could crawl for her katana. She could see it and she could take ownership of it again within a matter of moments. But Merle still had the gun pointed in a direction that meant that he could either shoot her or the man in front of him with ease.

And if she weren't positive that Merle was on her side, Michonne might have worried for her safety at the moment.

Merle Dixon was, perhaps, as good of an actor as Michonne had ever seen in her life.

"You—uh—think it'd be better to just haul her out under cover?" Merle asked. "Tie her up?"

"You and I both know she won't make it far out there," the Governor said. "And going out in ropes? Someone might see."

Merle hummed.

"People ain't sleepin' well," Merle said. "Lot goin' on. Lot'sa—worryin' about the future of this place."

"We don't want people to worry," the Governor said.

"Sure don't," Merle agreed. He hummed to himself. "Think—it'd be best to just shoot her? Take her out later? Under cover?"

"I think that might be best," the Governor said. "In fact—we could give her a real hero's exit. Take her out the back. Load her into one of the trucks. When we get back from the prison, we introduce her among the dead." The Governor looked at Michonne and smiled. "A hero's farewell."

Merle laughed to himself.

"An' you'll be there to—handle Andrea," Merle said. "Same as any widow."

The Governor laughed to himself.

"Comfort is just another thing I offer to the people here," the Governor said. "As their leader."

"What if we let her live?" Merle asked.

"Let her live?" The Governor asked.

Merle hummed and shrugged his shoulders. The Governor laughed like he thought the suggestion was a joke and Merle laughed along with him before he quickly set his expression once more.

"I'm serious," Merle said. "I ain't seen—nothin' that makes me think we oughta kill her. See—ever'body I ever been sent to take care of? Well—I knowed why it was that we took care of 'em. But—I guess I don't know what she did."

"Are you asking me for an explanation?" The Governor asked, somewhat incredulous.

"I guess I am," Merle said.

The Governor laughed again, the same nervous laugh that he'd been using all along, and then he nodded his head.

"Fine. Spying to find out government information," he said, irritation coming out in his tone and growing with each accusation. "Breaking and entering. Destruction of property. She attacked me. She assaulted me _after_ she broke into my home and _murdered_ my daughter."

"Michonne?" Merle asked. "You killed his kid?"

"Walker," Michonne said. She looked toward the body and Merle quickly found it with his eyes. He hummed and nodded his head.

Outside, and catching the attention of all of them, came the quick popping sounds of what might have been mistaken for firecrackers if Michonne hadn't actually known that they were bullets. She could hope that they were fired into the air, but she knew that there was a possibility that they weren't.

"Rick," the Governor said quickly. "Merle—give me the gun. We've got to take care of this."

"I think it's taken care of," Merle said. "That ain't Rick. At least—I don't believe it is. It weren't him I left outside in the streets with guns."

"What are you talking about?" The Governor asked.

"Jig is up," Merle said. "I think—if you was to go out there? You'd find out you ain't got no real supporters left, _Gov'na_. I come up here to take care of somethin', but it weren't Michonne."

Michonne saw the exact moment that the Governor realized that Merle had turned against him and that, very likely, most of his people had turned against him as well. From her position on the floor, too, Michonne could see that the Governor was wearing a pistol in the back of his belt that he hadn't pulled yet. The gun was half hidden by his untucked shirt—the result of dressing quickly in the middle of the night.

She let herself, finally, carefully work her way across the floor toward the sword that she'd lost at the start of the fight.

"You won't get away with this," the Governor said.

"Already have," Merle offered.

"They'll kill you," the Governor said.

"Anybody that would is prob'ly already dead," Merle said. "We gave 'em the offer—walk or die. We'll extend it to you, too. Just to show we don't mean nothin' more'n keepin' this community safe. You can walk—get the hell away from Woodbury an' everybody in it—or you can decide it's over. Choice is up to you." He laughed to himself. "Take your time. We got all damn day."

Michonne saw him when he went for his gun. He'd forgotten she was there. He'd forgotten, too, that she wasn't as slow-moving, maybe, as he gave her credit for being.

The gun cleared the holster, but it never made it much beyond that before Michonne drove the sword quickly through the Governor's back and out his chest.

For just a moment, everything froze. Even after Michonne pulled the blade free, the man remained on his feet for a second before dropping to the floor beside the gun he couldn't quite hold onto.

"Looks like he made his decision to me," Merle said. He raised his gun and fired a bullet into the Governor's skull without hesitation.

After all, the last thing they wanted were Walkers getting loose in Woodbury.

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 **AN: If you read much of my stuff, you already know this, but I write Michonne as having had daughters like the comic character. That's why I refer to the loss of her "children".**


	26. Chapter 26

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here. Not much more to go. I think there's one chapter left and I'll be wrapping this one up.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"They gonna need someone to follow," Merle said. "That's what the hell they do. That's why the hell we got 'em this far. Most of these people? Saved 'em damn near from themselves when we found 'em out there. They ain't stupid, and most of 'em got a lot to offer Woodbury, but they need a leader. If we don't give 'em one? They'll find one and it might be somebody that's even worse than the Governor."

"Anybody that wants the job of bein' some kinda damn leader of a group like this has gotta be at least a lil' bit fucked up," Daryl said. "If you weren't? You wouldn't want so much responsibility. You wouldn't want so much blood on your hands if things don't work out the way you was hopin' they would."

"Not necessarily," Michonne said. "We all took this position. Together. We all decided that we wanted to take charge of the people of Woodbury. We made a plan and we decided that they should go along with it. We worked to make that happen so that we could overthrow the government that was in place." She shook her head. "None of us did it because we wanted absolute power. We did it because we wanted to get rid of corruption and make room for someone with a vision that matched a little closer to ours."

"Do we even got a vision?" Merle asked.

He yawned, probably in spite of himself, and pressed his fingers into his eyes.

Like all of them, Merle was exhausted. They'd all been up pretty much the entire night.

When they'd hit the street, Carol had left Sophia in the apartment behind lock and key. She'd hated being separated from her daughter for even that long, but she wasn't sure what was going to happen. With almost guaranteed gunfire to come, Carol thought it was better if her daughter was well out of reach. When they'd returned to the apartment to regroup and discuss how they were approaching the town at dawn—when all the great citizens of Woodbury expected to hear from them—Carol had found Sophia still awake and had quickly tucked her daughter in to sleep with the promise that all the trouble had been dealt with.

There wasn't time, however, for all of them to sleep. They still had a number of problems to settle before the sun rose and people came to them looking for answers and guidance.

The Governor was dead. They were treating his apartment like a crime scene at the moment. They wanted it intact in case the morning should find any straggling protestors that, after a good sleep, decided they weren't certain that the man should have died. Merle and Michonne had handled that part alone.

The few remaining loyalists to the Governor were also dead.

They'd been offered the opportunity to leave. They'd been given the chance to simply go. They could take what they owned and they could walk out of the walls of the community and never come back. They could keep their lives, but they couldn't stay because they couldn't risk simply replacing one tyrant with another.

In their own ways, each of the men who strongly believed in the Governor's methods for ruling had made it clear the fate that they'd chosen.

Carol, herself, had pulled the trigger on one of them. She was almost glad that she wasn't sleeping because she could still see him every time she closed her eyes. She feared that the feeling she had over killing the man wouldn't fade any time soon, and she honestly wasn't sure if that was a curse or, more likely, a blessing.

 _She was still entirely human._

Once everything was dealt with, and the chaos in the streets started to die down, Daryl had addressed the people gathered there. There would be no fight against the prison at dawn as the Governor had planned. There would be negotiations—real ones—with the people of the prison group and there would be efforts made to keep Woodbury peaceful and whole. There was nothing left to see and people were sent back to their homes. They were asked to return to the town's center at dawn to discuss the future of Woodbury. Until then, they could all simply sleep soundly.

All of them that were gathered together in Merle's apartment, however, weren't sleeping. There was a little dozing going on, especially by Sadie who had declared that she was too tired to put in too much effort trying to follow the entire conversation, but nobody was abandoning the group entirely.

"I don't think we thought that far ahead," Andrea said. "I mean—not to have some grand vision for the future of Woodbury. We didn't want to go to war. I, for one, didn't want to lose this place. I didn't want to lose the safety and the comfort. I didn't want to go back out there just to die of the flu in a swamp somewhere."

"We can't exactly present that as the vision of the whole damn town," Merle said.

"Why not?" Daryl asked.

"What?" Merle questioned.

"Why not?" Daryl repeated. "What the hell kinda vision we gotta have? What kinda vision did the Governor have? And people followed him. They were happy enough with his shit that it took this trumped up war over moldy ass boxes of shit to get people to push back."

Merle shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess the only vision he ever had was keepin' this place goin'," Merle said. "Doin' whatever he had to do to provide for everyone here. That's what he said."

"It's what he did, too," Andrea said. "At least to some degree. To be fair—until this war, he wasn't putting everyone in danger too often."

"Not if you was already inside the gates," Merle said.

"Our vision is simple," Carol said. "It's the same vision that we have. Or—at least that Daryl and I have discussed. We want a future. We want somewhere secure where we can live. Really live. We want a place where Sophia can grow up safely. Who knows what comes later? We want a place where we can build a future and not have to worry constantly about what's going to happen in the next hour or so. We want—we want to work so that we have enough. So that we have everything we need. But, hopefully, that we can have everything we need without having to go to war for—as Daryl put it—boxes of—of moldy stuff."

"It ain't no perfect vision," Daryl said. "But—I don't know who the hell would say it ain't the kinda thing they could get behind."

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"So—we're inviting anyone who wants to see proof of the Walker that the Governor was keeping and the heads to tour his apartment," Andrea said. "We're inviting anyone who wants to see the Walker pens that we found in the storage areas to tour those as well. We have the testimonies of some of the Governor's council members about acts that they were asked to commit. The Governor is dead. His supporters are dead. Everyone was given the opportunity to leave Woodbury and we still extend that offer to anyone here. Woodbury is an open community. Nobody is a prisoner here. You can leave whenever you want and you can leave without consequence."

"If you want to see anything," Michonne interrupted, "or if you require proof? You'll need to let us know as soon as we wrap up here. We're getting clean-up underway and the bodies will be taken care of by burning so as to not contaminate the soil."

"Soil that we hope," Daryl offered, "is gonna be the site of our new gardens. Growin' what we need so we don't gotta worry as much about where the hell our meals is comin' from."

Carol saw Daryl take a sudden interest in his shoes for a moment when he noticed that he had everyone's attention. It was something he was going to have to get used to, but things didn't often happen overnight. Carol slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. He glanced at her and smiled. It wouldn't happen overnight, but it would happen. Carol was certain of that. And she'd be there to support him in any way that he needed.

Daryl bumped her gently with his elbow, nudging her. It was her turn to speak. Carol nodded her understanding and addressed the people that were, undeniably, now the members of their community family.

"You came here for us to tell you who the new leader of Woodbury is going to be," Carol said. "We stayed up all night discussing it and we've reached a decision. For the time being, we're all your leaders. None of us holds any more power than anyone else. Everyone you see here—everyone that was behind what happened last night—will discuss the things that we do here as a group. We hope that the panel will be able to offer something for everyone. We hope that everyone's interests will be taken into account and that—with all of us working together? We'll be able make sure that everything is as fair as possible. We want everyone to benefit from everything we do. We'd also like to invite anyone who has anything they'd like to address to join us. We want to know your concerns and we want to know—what it is that you want. This is your town."

"We have to have a leader," someone called out from the group gathered there. A rumble of agreement ran through the audience.

"We thought you might say that," Daryl said, laughing to himself. He looked at Carol like he was searching for reassurance. With the hand that wasn't holding hers, he reached for Sophia's hand. Sophia smiled up at him and he winked at her when he had her attention. "And you right. The panel keeps it all in check here in Woodbury. The panel makes sure that everything's fair. Makes sure that—they ain't nobody that gets complete control of the place. Don't leave room for anyone to decide who lives an' who dies at the drop of a hat. Don't allow for nobody to send us into a war that we ain't prepared to fight. But—people like a figurehead. Don't they? They like someone to look to, even if that person don't got all the power that they represent. For the military part of Woodbury—'cause we can't pretend that we may not ever have to fight—we got a leader in my brother." Daryl laughed to himself. "Even if I never thought I'da said them words—we believe Merle's the right man for the job. He's willin' to do what the hell's gotta be done, even if he don't like it, but he ain't gonna just jump feet first into a pond full of shit without checkin' to see how deep it is."

Carol elbowed him and Daryl laughed to himself. He was relaxing. He was already growing more comfortable with everyone's attention and Carol knew that he'd continue to grow even more comfortable as time went on. He was right for this, even if he was a little afraid that he wasn't, and he had the support of a lot of people—true support that gave him a clear boost of confidence.

"My wife is elbowin' me," Daryl said. "So I'm sorry if I offended anybody. Just meant to say—we all think Merle's gonna do best headin' up our military. And if you interested in helping to protect Woodbury? He'd be the man you oughta talk to."

"I'ma head up the military alright," Merle said. "But I ain't doin' it alone. Gonna keep workin' with the same damn people I been workin' with all along. Got a few new faces, too. We don't wanna go to war, but if war comes to Woodbury? We gonna be ready for it."

"As for your everyday figureheads? They're going to be Carol and Daryl," Andrea offered. "We discussed it and—they're going to be the ones who represent Woodbury until we can get organized enough to hold an official election."

There was a light round of applause and Carol caught Daryl looking at her. She held up her hand to try to quiet down the people who had, honestly, been waiting for that announcement alone.

"We want to know what you want," Carol said. "We want to know how you want things to run around here. We're not forcing ourselves on you as leaders. We'll set up an election, if that's what you want. We'll add more people to our panel. The only thing that we won't do is allow for the panel to be broken up. We won't allow for anyone to become some sort of—of tyrant—again. Daryl and I agreed to do this because—we wanted to find this place. When we were out there? This was the kind of place that we dreamed of. We wanted everything that Woodbury represents—family, friends, community, comfort, safety...and hope for a future. We took this role because we hope that's what you want. But we can't do it alone."

"Nobody can do anything alone," Daryl offered. "Most of us learned that shit before. Most of us got left on our own out there. We know that ain't no way to live, but goin' it alone's a quick way to die. That sure ain't what we want. So we gotta do this together. Everybody here works together or it don't work. We're gonna go and talk to the prison. See if we can't do some real negotiating. See if we can't find some peace between us and them. Something that don't require nobody to die. Got word back that they ain't gonna attack. They gonna respect our wishes and wait on us to get there. So—we're gonna get a lil' sleep, since none of us have slept for a while now, an' we're gonna talk to some of you before we send someone over there to set up a meetin' with the prison. We're gonna figure this out. Clean up the mess that's already been made. Then we gonna work on the future. Do what's good for us. Every last damn one of us."


	27. Chapter 27

**AN: Here we are, the last chapter!**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl steered the truck down the small side road that was well-worn from the back and forth travel. Ahead of them he could see the high fences and the wooden stakes—an idea that they'd shared from their own efforts to further protect Woodbury from the Walkers in the area—that surrounded the fences to keep them from being under too much pressure when the Walker population boomed after the first thaw of winter.

As soon as their vehicles were in sight, someone clearly seeing them from the guard towers, the gates started to open. Daryl slowed the truck to allow for Carl and Matthew—one of the young men who had come to join the prison group some time back—to clear the area of Walkers before he pulled the truck inside and followed the "instructions" given to him by Maggie as she waved a flag at him to guide him to the area where they preferred they park the trucks for the exchange.

They were expanding some of the fences for livestock and that meant that the prison was a bit of mess at the moment, but it was functioning well.

For almost two years Woodbury and the Prison had been sister communities.

Rick, who wouldn't see reason when the Governor was alive, had seen reason very quickly when Daryl and his companions had gone to the prison to report that the Governor was dead and they were hoping for a chance to start things off on the right foot. To avoid fighting, both sides had to forgive. Some of them had to forgive more than others, but forgiveness was the only way forward.

So they'd forgiven their dead.

They'd forgiven wrongdoings.

They'd forgiven being left behind.

They'd forgiven being _cut loose_ as Merle had called it.

Together they'd agreed that the only way that any of them could move toward a future that they all wanted was to let go of the past. What had been didn't matter anyway. What truly mattered was what _would be._

They'd worked together to decide what both groups might need to build a truly sustainable life. They'd worked together to raise crops in both communities, to raise livestock, to scavenge for supplies, and to develop better ways to protect their homes.

With the two communities working together, they had more than they needed. The people of the Prison came and went in Woodbury as they pleased. Likewise, those from Woodbury frequently made their way to the Prison. Trades took place when they were needed and, every now and again, they called on each other for help when some group that was passing-through thought it was a better idea to try to take over a community rather than to simply become contributing members of it.

They'd practically become "one" to the point that there had been, in the past two years, two marriages that took place between people belonging to either one of the communities—and both couples had been freely given the choice of where they wanted to live. One couple had chosen the Prison, while another had thought that Woodbury more clearly fit their vision for the future they dreamed of having together.

And Daryl thought, though he kept it to himself, that for as friendly as the two could be together, there might one day be another marriage that truly bound the two communities together when Carl and Sophia found themselves coming to the age when they might seriously consider such a commitment.

The Prison remained under Rick's rule, though Daryl had noticed that the man was taking suggestions more and more from those around him. Woodbury had held two elections since the Governor died, but Daryl had won both of them without even truly campaigning. His only real campaign promise had been that he'd keep doing what he was doing if the people of Woodbury wanted that—and apparently that was exactly what they wanted. He'd "ran" unopposed both times, so naturally he'd won.

Daryl considered himself the leader of Woodbury, though, only in name and in face. He made no great decisions without his panel and he seldom made even the most minor decision without at least the input of one other person. Carol was a part of every decision that he'd made so far, even if it was something as simple as when they might have the town festival to celebrate their harvest. Daryl made sure that he could never be accused of trying to assume the absolute power that he thought was so dangerous. It was only in the case of an absolute emergency that Daryl retained the right to make a decision for the good of the community, and it seemed that the people of Woodbury were comfortable granting him that power if such a situation should arise.

Before Daryl could get his truck door open and slide all the way out of the cab, Carl greeted him with a little-less-than-customary greeting.

"Did Sophia come?" Carl asked.

"Not this time," Daryl said. "Stayed back. There was a baby comin' today an' Soph wanted to train with the Doc. Not every day she gets hands-on experience." Carl looked so let down by the information that Daryl almost felt sorry for him. He reached a hand out and patted Carl on the shoulder. "We got a lot to pick up today. Maybe we don't get it all an' you can bring a load on to Woodbury later with your old man." Carl looked at least a little satisfied with that and he headed off in the direction of the gates, again, to get back to the job that he'd been assigned for the day.

Daryl waved at Maggie on his way around the truck and opened Carol's door. He offered her a hand and she smiled at him before she took it. She might insist that she didn't need any help, but he wasn't listening to it anyway, so she didn't bother.

By the time the last of their trucks pulled to a stop, Merle was out of the truck he was driving and had already unloaded the tiny person riding shotgun with him to fill in for her mother while Sadie helped Andrea and Michonne with keeping things running smoothly back at Woodbury.

Savannah was a little over a year old and, as far as Daryl knew, she didn't have a clue that she wasn't twenty and the boss of the whole town of Woodbury. She was a good baby, though, and for that she was well-travelled around Woodbury and its surrounding areas. She'd been doing rounds with both her parents since she was a week old.

Savannah hadn't been to the Prison in a while, though, and neither had Carol. As soon as they both cleared the trucks and caught the attention of some of the people who lived there, Daryl heard the greeting ringing out from Lori.

"CAROL—Oh my!" Lori barked, quickly closing the distance between them to catch Carol in a hard hug. "I was coming to see the baby and then I saw you! Look at you! Why didn't you tell me?!"

Daryl laughed to himself. He didn't have to wonder what Lori was referring to. She swatted at Daryl.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Lori asked, this time sending the question in Daryl's direction.

Daryl laughed again.

"Because if I'da told you, woulda took away the chance for you to find out this way," Daryl said.

Carol was seven months pregnant if she was a day pregnant. Daryl had worried about her when they'd first found out, though she'd been strangely calm and happy about everything from the start. At first, Daryl had done everything he could to try to protect her, to the point that he'd tried to figure out how to wrap her in bubble wrap, but his worrying had driven Carol crazy and it had almost been a necessity that it pass pretty quickly. He was lucky that his sister-in-law had been there to help him out and to give him some inside information about what to expect. For the most part she'd been right about everything. After all, she'd already dealt with one nervous Dixon facing the arrival of his first-born child.

The Doc in Woodbury kept a close watch on Carol, but Daryl couldn't say that she seemed any more concerned with Carol than she was with any of the expectant mothers.

And the closer they got to having something of a delivery date in mind, the calmer Daryl got and the more anxious Carol grew. He supposed that they balanced each other out pretty well that way.

Carol smiled at Daryl and ran her hand over her swollen belly before she put her arm on Lori's shoulder affectionately.

"It's probably not a fair trade," Carol said, "but it's part of the reason that we came. I've been dying for some milk and...our milk-cow died. We brought half a truck full of chopped and stacked firewood to exchange for another one—if you've got one you can part with."

Lori nodded her head and put her arm on Carol's to try to steer her away. She pointed toward their livestock pens.

"Come on," Lori said. "We've got six right now and we really don't even use half the milk they make. You'd be doing us and the cows a favor by taking two of them off our hands."

"Let me grab Savannah," Carol said, pulling away from Lori and heading toward Merle to relieve him of his daughter for a few moments. "Come on, sweetheart—let's go look at the cows. Let's let Daddy go to work and we'll go—look at the cows."

Daryl heard some exchange take place over how much Savannah had grown and then he watched as Lori lead Carol toward the livestock to choose which cows, hopefully, would go into the livestock trailer that two of the men from Woodbury had pulled in behind Merle's truck.

"What'd you come to steal from us this time?" Rick asked.

Daryl laughed to himself before he even turned to see Rick walking toward him, mopping at his forehead with a handkerchief. As he approached, he shook Daryl's hand and the he shook Merle's.

"We're gettin' two cows, I think," Daryl said. "Swappin' it out for more wood than you gonna need all winter."

"Got six bags of wool in there too," Merle said. "At least two dozen hides cleaned and ready to be used. Couple pounds of smoked meat."

"We could use all that," Rick said. "We've been working on getting the pens ready for the winter so the animals won't freeze and we've been working on getting that new barn built. With that and the fences? We've almost forgotten to put anything away."

"We're in full swing getting food ready for the winter," Daryl said. "That's what Sadie's doin' today is makin' sure there ain't no trouble in the kitchens while they're prepping everything. Got a population boom over at Woodbury an' by my countin'? We got eight babies set to come this winter. Strength in numbers," Daryl said with a laugh. "An' we're sure doing our part to add to the numbers."

Merle slapped Daryl on the shoulder.

"One of which is gonna make Daryl here a Daddy again," Merle said.

"Carol?" Rick asked. He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun and looked over in the direction where Carol had gone with Lori. Daryl doubted, though, that he was at a good angle to tell much about Carol's condition.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Got a couple more months to go."

"Congratulations," Rick said.

He looked like he meant it, too, and Daryl thanked him for the comment. Rick and Lori had welcomed a baby girl not long after the Governor had been killed. Maggie and Glenn had welcomed a little boy about the time that Sadie had introduced Savannah to the world.

Sophia had given them her blessing in the form of asking, flat out, when exactly she'd get a baby brother or sister. They'd laughed about it then, simply saying that they hadn't planned anything, but even without planning it wasn't six months after Sophia's frank question that Carol found out that she was expecting.

The world wasn't ending at all, not like they might have once thought it was. In many ways, it felt to Daryl like it was just beginning.

He was more excited, now, for the future than he'd ever been before.

"If you got vegetables you wantin' to put up," Daryl said, "we could take 'em back to Woodbury. The kitchens is runnin' good there. Wouldn't be no trouble to can what you got right along with what we're puttin' up."

"We can't put the extra work on you," Rick said.

"Don't be stupid," Daryl said. "We'll just—take a couple extra cans off the top. Or you can—throw in an extra couple a' chickens today when we're swappin' out for some."

Rick nodded his head.

"We could do that," he said. "We've got more than enough. Some extra eggs too. Just—as a gift. They're going to go bad and people are getting tired of eggs for every meal."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Fine," he said. "Eggs, chickens—come on back here. Lemme show you what we got. See what you might be interested in. We'll work it all out. Merle? You wanna—go on up to the prison? Talk ammo with Eugene?"

Merle hummed at him and nodded his head.

"He should be up there," Rick said. "In his 'office'."

Merle laughed to himself.

"I know the way," Merle said. "Don't'cha worry 'bout me. I ain't gonna get lost."

Merle started across the prison yard and toward the prison where he'd talk to the man who pressed bullets for both communities. Some distance away, Carol was talking to Lori as they walked along, probably catching up on everything that they hadn't shared in the past six months or so since Carol had made the trip between Woodbury and the Prison. The other men who had come with Daryl had excused themselves—one of them had a girlfriend that Daryl knew lived at the Prison—to go and spend a few minutes with people they'd come to see.

And Daryl sat down, on the back of one of their trucks, to smoke a cigarette and talk with Rick about the winter that was coming and the supplies that all of them would have in abundance.

Woodbury and the Prison were separate communities, but they came together when and where it mattered.

They could work together for their communities and for their families.

Once upon a time, Daryl might have wondered what would become of them. He might have wondered if they could survive—and he'd even doubted that many of those that he counted among his family _had_ survived. Now, though, he didn't worry like he once had. In fact, he hardly worried at all.

Around him, piece by piece, their lives just seemed to be coming neatly together. And Daryl, for one, was excited to see what the future held for all of them.

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 **AN: There you have it, the end of this little story.**

 **I sincerely thank all of you who have supported me during the writing of this story. To those of you who read and reviewed, I thank you for the support and for the reviews that kept me going and let me know you were interested. For those of you that simply read, I thank you for reading because, as you all know, there's very little use in writing anything that nobody wants to read. That's what I write for—to share stories with all of you!**

 **I hope that you've enjoyed the story and I hope to see you, somewhere down the line, on another story!**

 **Let me know what you think!**


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